y"l" 
 
 OA 
 
 GAim 
 
 ."' e 
 
 MELONEY
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 THE GIRL OF 
 THE GOLDEN GATE 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM BROWN MELONEY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GROSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 CorVRlUHT, 1913, BT 
 
 WILLIAM BROWN MBLONEY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BT 
 1 WARU J. CLODS
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 2131235
 
 THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN 
 GATE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE general steamship agency on The 
 Bund was a hive of bustling travelers, 
 their faces alight with the eagerness with 
 which they desired to be gone their many ways 
 up and down the world. A stranger might have 
 imagined that most of Yokohama's European 
 or " white " population had been possessed of a 
 sudden desire to flee beyond the seas. 
 
 It was a scene common enough, however, for 
 that season in the gateways of the Far East. 
 Spring, with its heart call to distant homelands, 
 had come again to break the spell of the Orient 
 for many and to stir an unutterable longing in 
 the breasts of others the men and women who 
 dream always of the day they will <r go back," 
 but who never do. 
 
 The crowd was a conglomerate, as crowds go, 
 and not lacking in picturesque touches here 
 where a Chinese of mandarin rank went with a 
 silky retinue; there where a pair of turbaned 
 
 1
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Sikhs stood near two begoggled Korean priests, 
 muttering in gutturals over their tickets for the 
 South. The placidity and impenetrable calm of 
 these few Oriental faces served but to accentu- 
 ate the mobile expressiveness of the dominant 
 Caucasian countenance. 
 
 Still there was one white man whose features 
 betrayed no expression of interest in the scene. 
 He stood head and shoulders over those around 
 him in a line of applicants at a booking desk to- 
 ward the rear. There was an air of detachment 
 about him. Apparently he was untouched of the 
 spirit of mystic restlessness and excitement 
 which pervaded the place that resistless, un- 
 deniable spirit which takes hold of even the most 
 unimaginative and lackadaisical in railway 
 depots or wherever else men in numbers set out 
 upon journeys. There was no gleam of the 
 homeward-bounder in his eye that gleam which 
 is more like the light of love than anything else ; 
 there was no expectancy; no sign of eagerness. 
 
 At a first glance this man's face seemed no 
 more than a mask. At a second one realized 
 that the features were those of one who must 
 have won unto the priceless possession of self- 
 control. The nose was large and yet as sensi- 
 tively formed as the freshly shaven lips and 
 chin. The ears were perfectly lobed the ears 
 2
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of a thoroughbred. The jaw was that of the 
 natural fighter, not heavy and jowly, but cut 
 in a sharp, straight line from the hinge to the 
 point. Tiny wrinkles in the outer corners of 
 the eyelids, which come from facing long dis- 
 tances on sea or land, kept forming and reform- 
 ing as his gray eyes wandered idly over the 
 heads of the crowd. It is thus that the tribes of 
 the earth's big spaces are marked. 
 
 Several times he pushed his small gray felt 
 hat back from his brow and then as absently 
 pulled it down again. When he did this one saw 
 the seam of a jagged scar, still pink from recent 
 healing, which traversed the left temple and 
 disappeared in the dark-brown hair over the 
 ear. Although the forelock and the temples 
 were quite gray, he was not more than thirty- 
 five years old. 
 
 His blue serge suit fitted well and the trim- 
 ness of his setting-up his whole bearing, in 
 fact spoke of one of military training. Per- 
 haps it was this suggestion of the soldier that 
 made the Sikhs turn and look back at him as 
 they passed out on The Bund. Yet it was not 
 as a soldier that the port of Yokohama knew 
 him, but by the name of Whitridge and as the 
 captain of the sorriest-looking piece of sea grist 
 that had ever made Tokyo Bay. A brute of
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 a Chinese tramp she was, and men who knew 
 deep waters were still marveling how he had 
 brought her through the vitals of a typhoon 
 the worst in their memory which had swept 
 the coast in a fury of destruction. 
 
 Chinese tramps and those who go in them are 
 of little moment, but on the morning two months 
 before that the port had awakened to find in its 
 fairway a salt-crusted thing called the Kau 
 Lung, minus funnels and masts and suggesting 
 only vaguely a steamship, it knew that it looked 
 on one of the deep's wonders. The sea must 
 have swallowed her and spat her up again, and 
 those who said this had in mind that tramps 
 which fly the dragon cloth are the unsweetest 
 things upon big waters. 
 
 Yet not only through stress of storm had he 
 weathered her, but through a mutiny whose 
 blood rusted her decks. Without mates and 
 alone save for a big Cantonese serang he had 
 done this thing and then come silently ashore to 
 nurse his wounds. 
 
 Presently Whitridge stood at the head of the 
 line. A man who looked ill and who told the 
 booking clerk with a nervous laugh that he 
 hadn't seen " the home country " in twenty 
 years gave way to him. 
 
 " Now, sir, your pleasure," said the clerk. 
 
 4
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 . . 
 
 Oh," answered Whitridge as if bringing his 
 thoughts from a great distance. " I wish to 
 to book on the Cambodia, please." 
 
 " She's pretty full, sir," said the clerk, with 
 a doubtful shake of the head and turning away 
 to get a stateroom diagram. 
 
 A momentary hush fell on the crowd. 
 
 " Gad! " exclaimed a young Englishman 
 standing beside Whitridge. 
 
 Turning, Whitridge followed the man's 
 glance toward the agency entrance. 
 
 A woman with hair of the color of gold that 
 has been washed in sea water was coming in 
 out of the sunshine of the radiant March morn- 
 ing. A picture hat of rough bronze straw ac- 
 centuated the wealth and beauty of her won- 
 derful crown. A long, loose tan coat, with full 
 sleeves, made her appear a shade taller than 
 she really was, but her erect, healthy carriage 
 threw the garment about her in clinging folds 
 which softened its fashionable' modernness. 
 
 She paused for a second, a tilt of inquiry to 
 her vivid head. Then she moved swiftly to the 
 desk where Whitridge was standing. 
 
 11 I have a letter I wish to see the director 
 the manager, please," she said to the clerk 
 in a low, well-bred voice. 
 
 Looking up, the clerk gave a start of surprise, 
 
 5
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 recovered himself quickly, and indicated a door 
 to the left. She opened it and passed inside 
 followed by a woman in black, evidently a maid. 
 The clerk's eyes trailed after her with some- 
 thing of awe in them. There was hardly a 
 glance in the room which was not turned in the 
 same direction. 
 
 11 Out East here we we see nothing but little, 
 dark women," the clerk began apologetically, 
 facing Whitridge again. 
 
 " Ever see Burne- Jones' ' Springtime '? ' 
 interrupted the Englishman eagerly. Whit- 
 ridge nodded. * ' Gad ! Isn 't she like it ? " An- 
 other nod answered him. 
 
 " Now, sir," interrupted the clerk, spreading 
 out a diagram. ' ' The Cambodia calls at Hono- 
 lulu, you " 
 
 " I wish to book through to San Francisco 
 an outside room, if possible." 
 
 " Luck's with you, sir. The last one," and 
 he indicated with a pencil point a small space 
 aft on the port side. "Whitridge nodded his 
 acceptance and at that moment the office door 
 at the left opened quickly. 
 
 A middle-aged man, evidently the agency 
 manager, emerged, preceding the " Spring- 
 time " woman. 
 
 11 Burr! Reserve an outside room on the
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Cambodia at once," he called to tlie clerk book- 
 ing Whitridge. 
 
 " Too late, sir. I've just sold the last one 
 to this gentleman." 
 
 Whitridge turned. A shadow of keen disap- 
 pointment passed over the face of the golden- 
 haired woman. 
 
 " Oh, is there nothing you can do? " she 
 asked, looking at the manager appealingly. He 
 glanced at Whitridge. " You don't know the 
 terror I feel the horror I have of being put 
 inside," she went on. There was a note of 
 genuine distress in her voice. 
 
 " There is another ship in eight days," an- 
 swered the manager. 
 
 ' ' But it is imperative that I sail on this one. ' ' 
 
 " If you will permit me," interrupted Whit- 
 ridge, baring his head, ' ' I will resign my room 
 to you." 
 
 " Oh, but that would not be fair. You are 
 very kind, but I I must pay for my lateness." 
 She met his gaze with an honest, uncompromis- 
 ing directness in her blue eyes. " You " 
 
 " Really it doesn't much matter where I am 
 put, ' ' and a note of sadness in his voice brought 
 an expression of interest into her brow. For 
 a part of a second their glances held and then 
 
 7
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Whitridge turned to the clerk : * * This lady will 
 take my room. ' ' 
 
 He spoke with a finality which evidently was 
 strange to her. She frowned slightly and 
 started as if to protest again. 
 
 " You should accept, Miss Granville," said 
 the manager anxiously and in a way that indi- 
 cated his desire to please a person of some im- 
 portance. She paused uncertainly as her lips 
 framed a " No," but meeting Whitridge 's gaze 
 again she gave a nod of decision. 
 
 *' I will accept. You are rendering me a 
 service greater than you know, ' ' she said grate- 
 fully and there was a brilliance as of tears in 
 her eyes. * l I thank you very much. ' ' 
 
 The manager, beaming with delight, thanked 
 Whitridge and led her back to his private office. 
 At the threshold she paused and turned to sur- 
 prise Whitridge 's gaze fixed hungrily upon her. 
 A smile with which she intended to thank him 
 died on her lips. A startled look came into her 
 eyes. She did not move until he turned toward 
 the clerk, who was asking him for a record for 
 the customs ' clearance. 
 
 " Paul Whitridge, thirty-four, master mar- 
 iner British subject," he said, and the clerk 
 recalled afterward the strange hesitancy with 
 which he gave his name and nationality. 
 8
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 The manager reappeared at this moment and 
 began reading a memorandum to the clerk: 
 " Miss Emily Granville, twenty-four Ameri- 
 can." Whitridge gave a barely perceptible 
 start of surprise as the name fell from the man- 
 ager 's lips. He compressed his eyes as if to 
 shut out some unpleasant thought or memory. 
 The manager threw the slip of paper on the 
 desk. "You can make it out, Burr. It's all 
 there. Book her and the maid that way," he 
 said. Then, turning to Whitridge, he went on : 
 "I'm mightily obliged to you, sir. I'll send a 
 note to the ship asking to have special care 
 taken of you. She is one of the big stockholders 
 in the Western Line. Cables came last night for 
 her she's just down from Tokyo. Some busi- 
 ness trouble at home trustee of her estate 
 dead. Something like that. Must get home im- 
 mediately. Can't bear to travel in inside rooms. 
 She her " 
 
 " It's all right," Whitridge said, cutting him 
 off. "I'm glad to have been able to do it." 
 
 He spoke with an indication of impatience 
 in tone and manner. Without another word he 
 gathered up his tickets and went out of the 
 agency. The manager and clerk wished him a 
 pleasant voyage, but if he heard them he made 
 no sign. 
 
 9
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Devilish strange sort," said the manager 
 in surprise. 
 
 "I should say so. I think he's the captain 
 that brought that wreck of a Chink tramp in 
 here a couple of months ago," answered the 
 clerk. 
 
 " Indeed! " With this exclamation of sur- 
 prise the manager hurried back to his office 
 where Emily Granville was waiting and think- 
 ing of the inexpressible sadness she had seen 
 in the face of the stranger who had resigned his 
 stateroom to her. It troubled her. In the in- 
 stant that she had turned to find his gaze fixed 
 on her she saw a pain in his eyes so poignant 
 that it hurt her. A soul sounding the deeps of 
 anguish seemed- to have been crying out just 
 behind them. 
 
 Whitridge, going swiftly along The Bund, was 
 torn by the thoughts which the name of Gran- 
 ville had started. It had been these thoughts 
 which had driven him out of the agency so 
 strangely. He argued and argued with himself 
 that he must be wrong; that there were un- 
 doubtedly others of that name in San Francisco. 
 He tried hard to think of other things, but ever 
 the vision of this woman with the golden hair 
 remained dominant. It excluded even the 
 thought of his mother whose message to come 
 10
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 home to her before it was too late had decided 
 him in an hour to cross the ocean. His remem- 
 brance of the woman was so vivid that she 
 might have walked at his side. The fragrance 
 of her remained in his nostrils. The atmos- 
 phere of her girlish freshness clung to him. 
 There was an indefiniteness about her like the 
 mystery of the Spring. The Englishman had 
 been right in thinking she suggested Burne- 
 Jones' " Springtime." She was a veritable 
 gold woman. 
 
 As he came to the little hotel hidden away in 
 the fringe of The Bluff's European respecta- 
 bility a Chinaman, waiting as a dog waits, 
 greeted him. It was the Cantonese serang 
 called Chang, who had come out of the maw of 
 death with him in the Kau Lung. Yokohama 
 knew him as Whitridge's shadow. 
 
 " Tlunk all pack, master. Him gone ship. 
 What time you sail 1 ? " the Chinaman asked in 
 a breath. 
 
 " Two o'clock," he answered and looked at 
 his watch. It was past noon. He told Chang 
 to call Suki, the flat-faced woman who ran the 
 hotel servants and who had been so good to 
 him in his first few weeks ashore when the 
 doctors were shrugging their shoulders doubt- 
 fully; and her daughter, Oki, and the boy he 
 
 11
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 had nicknamed " Sweeney." He had a little 
 present and a gold piece for each of them two 
 for Suki. 
 
 There were big tears in " Sweeney's " black 
 eyes when * * the honorable captain gentleman ' : 
 said good-by to him. He would never forget 
 him. 
 
 " Yes; you will forget, ' Sweeney,' " Whit- 
 ridge said in Japanese, with a little laugh. 
 
 " Oh, yes," agreed Suki, " he will forget. 
 Men forget, but women always remember." 
 
 " You know a lot about life, Suki," he an- 
 swered and turned and went into the hotel office. 
 
 At Whitridge's appearance the boyish-look- 
 ing clerk behind the desk flushed guiltily and 
 hid something under a book. Whitridge handed 
 him an odd silver cigarette case which the 
 young fellow had often admired. 
 
 " Just a token for your kindness, my boy," 
 he said. 
 
 " Gee, I I'm sorry you're going away, Cap- 
 tain Whitr Whitridge," stammered the clerk 
 and faltering peculiarly at the name. " I'll al- 
 ways keep this. What you've said has braced 
 me up and as soon as I get a little more money 
 together I'm going home. Good-by and and 
 the best of luck to you." 
 
 " Good-by and good luck to you," said the 
 12
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 departing guest, shaking the young fellow's 
 hand heartily. " You'll come through all 
 right." 
 
 The clerk's gaze followed Whitridge and 
 Chang through the door and until they were 
 clear of the grounds. Then he pulled out an 
 old newspaper. It was what he had hidden at 
 Whitridge 's unexpected appearance. Chang 
 had dropped it in packing Whitridge 's things. 
 For several minutes he studied the face which 
 looked up at him from a mass of black head- 
 lines. It was a portrait of Whitridge beyond a 
 doubt. 
 
 " He's; Lavelle all right but nobody '11 ever 
 get it out of me. He 's square, ' ' he muttered to 
 himself, and as he did so he tore the paper into 
 small bits. 
 
 13
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 " You marther get him better you kom-men 
 back? " asked Chang, breaking a long silence 
 as Whitridge and he came to the Cambodia's 
 gangway. 
 
 Just then Miss Granville and her maid went 
 by, but Whitridge did not catch her glance of 
 recognition. 
 
 " You not you never kom-men back," said 
 the Chinaman, shaking his head disconsolately 
 and bringing Whitridge 's gaze away from the 
 splendid figure of womanhood moving up the 
 gangway. The devotion that shone in the yellow 
 giant's eyes pierced his heart. 
 
 ' * Maybe, Chang maybe. I don 't know, ' ' an- 
 swered Whitridge. " Good-by, old man 
 good-by." He caught Chang's yellow hand and 
 wrung it and coolies idling round wondered at 
 the sight. " You're white all He wanted 
 
 to tell him that he was white all through, but 
 something closed his throat and he dared not 
 trust himself further. He fled up the gangway. 
 
 When he reached the deck he looked back, in- 
 tending to give Chang a farewell hand wave, but 
 the Chinaman had disappeared. He searched 
 14
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the pier from end to end, but there was a dim- 
 ness in his eyes and they made no discovery. 
 He turned to go forward and collided with two 
 men, one in the uniform of a United States naval 
 lieutenant and the other in civilian garb. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said quickly and 
 then his gaze met the officer's. 
 
 A challenging tenseness straightened Whit- 
 ridge. The man in uniform started back a step 
 as if he had been struck. Then, his good-look- 
 ing, but weak face went pale, his lips parted 
 loosely, and his features became as expression- 
 less as so much putty, under the glance which 
 Whitridge shot at him. It was a glance of but 
 a second. It began in hostility and ended with 
 a lash of contempt as he swung on forward. 
 
 The naval officer watched Whitridge until he 
 disappeared through the saloon gangway. 
 
 11 You look as you might if you had seen a 
 ghost, Campbell," said the civilian. 
 
 ' ' I I thought I did, Evans, ' ' stammered the 
 officer and making an effort to recover control 
 of himself. * ' I believed I thought that man 
 was dead." His voice went to a whisper. 
 " That that's Lavelle of the Yakutat." 
 
 * l No ! Impossible ! ' ' 
 
 11 It's he. I couldn't be mistaken. He was 
 in the class at Annapolis with me." 
 
 15
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " He's a rotter, if there ever was one," inter- 
 rupted Evans bitterly. The other nodded 
 dumbly. " Good thing he didn't land in the 
 navy." 
 
 " Until he was shown up I was blamed for 
 for his being ' bilged,' you know. But really 
 I wasn't to blame. Some of the fellows planted 
 some beer and booze in our room ; he stood mute, 
 but I had to testify. They expelled him." 
 
 The officer spoke as if conscience-smitten, but 
 his companion did not seem to be listening to 
 him. He interrupted him. 
 
 " It's a mighty unpleasant thing to think of 
 being in the same ship with a man like that," 
 he said very solemnly. As he spoke a shudder 
 passed over him. 
 
 The banging of a gong and a cry of " All 
 ashore, who 're going ashore! " cut short the 
 conversation and hurried the officer over the 
 side. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IT was with his soul swept by the pain of all 
 the bitterness of his life that Whitridge had 
 turned away from the two men on deck. His 
 memory of bitterness began with Porter Camp- 
 bell. He had feared from the day, a week be- 
 fore, when the American cruiser squadron had 
 put in to Yokohama that somebody would recog- 
 nize him. Now at the last moment his appre- 
 hension had been fulfilled. He knew the nature 
 of Campbell too well to dare to hope that he 
 would conceal his identity from the civilian to 
 whom he had been speaking. 
 
 Then, in a flash, he identified Campbell's com- 
 panion. It was Evans, of the consulate at Hong- 
 kong. He had read in a paper that morning 
 that Evans was en route home by the Cam- 
 bodia. 
 
 Just as he reached the window of the purser 's 
 office Whitridge recognized Emily Granville's 
 maid standing there. The thought seized him 
 that when this ship's company came to put him 
 on the wheel of scorn that she, too, must be 
 there to aid in the torture. He turned quickly 
 as if to retreat. It was not too late; he could 
 
 17
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 escape the agony and the humiliation that he 
 was certain was in store for him. 
 
 Even as he turned he paused with a new sad- 
 ness. The call in his mother's letter which yes- 
 terday's mail had brought to him, came to his 
 mind. The words were burned in his brain : 
 
 " Just to hold you in these withered old arms 
 again and press you to my breast as I used to 
 do when you were a bonny baby boy that is 
 all I ask. I would go through The Gate happy 
 and with a smile. ' ' 
 
 He turned back toward the window and as he 
 did so he felt the throb of the engines starting 
 the Cambodia down to the sea. 
 
 A slight woman in black, dark of skin and 
 with her raven hair groomed slickly after the 
 fashion of Oriental women, looked up at him 
 with a surprised but happy gleam of recogni- 
 tion. Whitridge did not see her, although he 
 appeared to be looking straight at her. She 
 paused, where she followed a Chinese steward 
 aft, and looked over her shoulder at him as he 
 went forward. 
 
 " Who is that, Moore the one in black! " 
 asked Evans stepping up to the window. 
 " Something familiar about her." 
 
 " Elsie of Shanghai," said the purser in an 
 undertone. " Sold out and going home." 
 18
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Ah," murmured Evans with a lifting of his 
 brows. " Knew her from her pictures. 
 They're in every conceivable place." 
 
 " She has played ' the game ' for all there 
 was in it," answered the purser. 
 
 " Say, Moore," and Evans' voice was serious, 
 " we've picked up a rotter here all right." The 
 purser glanced up inquisitively. " Lavelle of 
 the Yakutat's aboard." 
 
 " Wrong, sir. Can't be. Why that fellow's 
 dead, Mr. Evans. Died out East here some- 
 where. Saw it in the home papers only a little 
 while ago." 
 
 " He's not dead by a long shot. He's aboard 
 here." 
 
 " There's no Lavelle on the passenger list." 
 
 ' ' That means nothing, ' ' and Evans described 
 Whitridge. 
 
 " Why, that man's name's Whitridge an 
 Englishman. ' ' 
 
 "Well, he's Lavelle." 
 
 " He was here " 
 
 The purser stopped suddenly, a startled look 
 came into his eyes ; his face flushed. 
 
 Evans, following his gaze in wonderment, 
 turned and stepped quickly aside. Emily Gran- 
 ville was standing there, her maid beside her 
 carrying a jewel case. 
 
 19
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I wish to deposit this with you, purser," 
 she said. 
 
 There was a tremor in her voice. Every bit 
 of color was gone from her face. It might have 
 been a piece of Wedgwood. She paused only 
 long enough to indicate that the maid would 
 take the purser's receipt. 
 
 " Lord, but that woman's a dream," whis- 
 pered Evans after the maid had passed out of 
 hearing. The purser looked up at him 
 strangely. " But say, old man, what's the mat- 
 ter with you? " 
 
 " I wonder if she heard you say that that 
 Lavelle is aboard here ? ' ' 
 
 "Why? What if she did? " 
 
 " That's Emily Granville, of San Francisco 
 old John Granville's daughter. Granville and 
 his wife were lost with the Yakutat, you know. 
 Lavelle beat them away from the side of his 
 boat with an oar drowned them. ' ' 
 
 4 * My God ! ' ' exclaimed Evans, and he looked 
 at the purser blankly. 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 EMILY GEANVILLE could not have helped hear- 
 ing what was said at the purser's window. The 
 shock of the revelation stunned her. It seemed 
 impossible that fate could have placed her in 
 the same ship with the man whose fiendishness 
 had gloomed her whole life. 
 
 With her nerves overwrought and her senses 
 reeling, she sought her berth. There she argued 
 with herself that the man who had spoken to 
 the purser must be mistaken. It was not true, 
 she persisted in thinking. The man whom the 
 steamship agency manager had told her was 
 Captain Whitridge the man who had given up 
 his room to her could not be Lavelle. His was 
 not a face that could mask such a fiend. It was 
 too fine and yet the sadness of it the pain she 
 had seen in his eyes returned to startle her. 
 
 " I can't! I won't believe it! " she said to 
 herself over and over again, fighting the sense 
 of foreboding that grew in her heart. 
 
 But dinner time brought a brutal confirma- 
 tion. A passenger at the captain's table where 
 Emily Granville sat blurted out, before the 
 skipper could stop him, how the Cambodia's 
 
 21
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 first officer had seen the man called Whitridge 
 eoine aboard and had recognized him as La- 
 velle. He pointed him out, sitting with bent 
 head, at a table across the saloon. 
 
 With white face and scared, staring eyes 
 Emily Granville left her place. Somehow she 
 got to her room. A little while later her maid 
 found her senseless in her berth and revived 
 her only to hear her cry and moan that furies 
 black furies were tearing at her pillow. And 
 she breathed heavily as one spent from swim- 
 ming. 
 
 Before the Cambodia had dropped Mera Head 
 behind the horizon the loss of the Alaskan liner 
 Yakutat had been dragged out of its ten-year 
 past and gossiped from one end of the ship to 
 the other. What details proved elusive were 
 blithely manufactured into the fabric of a sea 
 disaster which had shocked the world and made 
 a nation ashamed. Men shook their heads omi- 
 nously and women shuddered as the fact passed 
 from mouth to mouth that Lavelle, the Ya- 
 kutat's second officer, who had beaten drowning 
 passengers with an oar, was among them. 
 When it became known that Emily Granville, 
 whose parents had been driven away from La- 
 velle 's boat, was also in the Cambodia arid lying 
 ill in her room from the shock of knowing that 
 22
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Lavelle was a fellow-passenger, a tenseness 
 came upon things that made the nerves of the 
 liner's officers raw. 
 
 Paul Lavelle did not enter the dining saloon 
 after that first night. It became known that he 
 took his meals in his room and left it only after 
 darkness fell. Watch officers saw him from 
 the bridge now and then a shadow in the 
 night. 
 
 " Wandering around like a pariah dog," one 
 of them told a passenger. Often they saw 
 " The Shadow " as late as dawn. 
 
 But this night it was the fifth out of Yoko- 
 hama the deck saw " The Shadow " earlier 
 than it was his wont to appear. The saloon was 
 bright and gay with an entertainment and La- 
 velle was taking advantage of this. He met 
 only one or two straying couples in the darkness 
 and they soon went inside. It was not a night 
 that invited one with moon or star. He could 
 remember few nights like it. It was a dead 
 black shocking in its intensity. The Cambodia 
 might have been a ship without funnels or 
 masts. Everything was cut off sheer by the 
 blackness. There was a light breeze which 
 seemed to dart out from every point of the 
 compass at once. It whimpered as it went bjr 
 his ears. 
 
 23
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 After a long, steady, hard walk " The Shad- 
 ow " sought out his favorite vigil post against 
 the pipe rail under the weather wing of the 
 bridge. It was to port to-night, although it 
 was hard to tell the weather side from the lee. 
 He gleaned some comfort from the thought that 
 the liner was rapidly slipping down to " the 
 corner " the intersection of the 180th meridian 
 and the 30th parallel through which ships 
 great circle between Yokohama and the Ha- 
 waiian Islands. She was due to turn it the fol- 
 lowing afternoon and that meant half his pas- 
 sage in her done. He had determined to quit 
 the ship at Honolulu. 
 
 Just after the lights went out in the saloon 
 at one bell a half-hour after midnight and 
 the silence of the dark hours had settled upon 
 the ship, he sensed somebody stealing along the 
 side of the deck house. He fixed a shape finally, 
 but no sooner had he done so than it disap- 
 peared. He could not tell whether it was the 
 form of a man or woman. Then, he heard a 
 heavy breath at his feet and jumped back de- 
 fensively. A hand touched him and he 
 grabbed it. 
 
 " Master! " whispered a voice in Chinese. 
 Chang rose beside him. 
 
 " Chang," was all he could say. He was 
 24
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 overwhelmed by the loyalty of this yellow heart 
 which could give and give and ask no return. 
 
 * ' I stow way. Make him work shubbel coal 
 like hell. No can kom-men here bee-fore. I go 
 'Flisco." Lavelle heard the sound of a heavy 
 footfall approaching. Chang's ears caught it, 
 too. " Good-by. To-mollah night I kom-men 
 gain." 
 
 A lantern light cut the darkness and the 
 ship's night watchman dashed round from the 
 lee side of the deck house, with a club raised to 
 strike. He lowered his arm as he discovered 
 Lavelle. 
 
 " Seen anything of a big coolie stoker round 
 here, sir? " 
 
 " No," answered Lavelle. 
 
 " Been tryin' to get aroun' up here the past 
 three nights," and the watchman muttered off 
 into the blackness. 
 
 " The Shadow " pondered a long time as to 
 what he could do for Chang, but he could come 
 to no decision. The thought that he was in the 
 ship cheered him though as he went to his room. 
 That hand in the darkness and the hand-clasp of 
 a frail woman in black one with her cage in 
 the zoo of life like himself were the only 
 friendly touches which had come to him. Elsie 
 of Shanghai was grateful, and had sought him 
 
 25
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 out the night of sailing to tell him so, because 
 he had kept her alive. She would never forget 
 that he had sheltered her from death in the 
 Shanghai riots. Chang would lay down his life 
 to pay the debt he considered he owed him for 
 saving his yellow carcass from the knives of a 
 drunken mob of sailors. Everybody wanted to 
 cling to life and he smiled grimly to himself in 
 the darkness at the thought. He had removed 
 his overcoat and coat and as he put out his hand 
 to grope for the electric flash he muttered, 
 ' ' What a comedy ! What a comedy ! ' ! 
 
 The next instant he was pitched headlong 
 against the side of the vessel by a shock which 
 rattled her like an empty basket. A sea slapped 
 through the open port of the room and choked 
 him with its brine. 
 
 26
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LAVELLE dragged himself to his feet with his 
 breath gone from him. For a moment he 
 thought he was paralyzed limbs, heart, nor 
 brain seemed to respond. The night was filled 
 with a multisonous orgy of sound. 
 
 Then, his strength returned to him as quickly 
 as it had gone. He leaped to the door and 
 plunged into the alleyway outside. He knew full 
 well what had happened as he ran aft and up 
 through the gangway which led from the main 
 to the promenade deck. Another vessel had 
 piled into the Cambodia. There was no land- 
 there were no rocks in the liner's track; nothing 
 but two, three, and four mile deeps on every 
 hand. Lights sprang up in the staterooms as 
 he passed. Somebody flashed them on in the 
 reception hall as he went through there. 
 Thence he took the social hall gangway and 
 came to the boat deck in a bound. 
 
 A quartermaster barely more than a boy 
 catapulted into his arms. Fear was driving 
 him. 
 
 " Let me go ! " he cried like a thing in a trap. 
 
 27
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Let me go! " and he cursed. Lavelle held 
 him firmly. 
 
 " Stand fast, son! You're all right! " 
 
 Lavelle spoke in almost a normal tone. 
 Whether it was what he said or what he saw 
 in Lavelle 's face that stilled the panic in the 
 youngster's heart no one will ever know. But 
 when Lavelle let him go and beckoned to him 
 to follow him the quartermaster went at his 
 side. 
 
 " Everything's gone for'ard! " he yelled at 
 Lavelle above the noise. " Windjammer big 
 lumberman no lights piled into us! Fore- 
 mast came over by the board! Bridge Old 
 Man chart house everybody everything 
 gone! " 
 
 Lavelle snatched these things visually out of 
 the blackness even as the boy shouted. 
 
 The Cambodia rolled back slowly to star- 
 board, but one who knew what Lavelle knew 
 could feel the life going out of her. Her en- 
 gines had stopped. 
 
 The shape of a sailing vessel a bark drew 
 away over on the starboard side and the grind- 
 ing of metal against metal ceased only to have 
 its place taken by the thunder of the Cambodia 
 beginning to exhaust. Lavelle could hear and 
 feel the stranger ripping at the steamer as she 
 28
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 went by. The Cambodia gave a lurch like a 
 drunken man getting out of a gutter. 
 
 " She's going! " he shouted in the boy's ear, 
 snatching his head to his lips. " Engineers- 
 all officers report here! Me! Find out what 
 water's in her! Find out how long lights '11 
 last! Tell 'em give us plenty of light. Be a 
 man! " 
 
 The boy fled and Lavelle ran up to starboard 
 and bawled against the night : 
 
 "Stand by if you're able! Stand by!" 
 There was an answering cry, but all he caught 
 was " Hell! " 
 
 Groping he found an electric cluster on each 
 side of the social hall house and flashed it on. 
 He ran aft and flashed on similar clusters on the 
 sides of the smoke-room house. These lights 
 embraced the eight small boats davited along 
 the Cambodia's sides. 
 
 From below men began to come by twos and 
 threes, some supporting women on their arms, 
 some carrying them, some carrying children, 
 some alone with fear tangling their feet and 
 some half curiously. One came lighting a ciga- 
 rette a fair-faced young chap and Lavelle 
 grabbed him in the social hall gangway and told 
 him to let only women and children pass. 
 
 61 Right 0! " was his answer and he took off 
 
 29
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 his coat and threw it away, accepting his task. 
 
 The glow of a man who would be obeyed was 
 on Lavelle's brow. Men knew he spoke with 
 the voice of authority and heeded it. They saw 
 the purser refuse to hold the gangway in the 
 social hall beside the fair-faced man and they 
 saw Lavelle smash him to the deck with a blow 
 of his fist. 
 
 Looking up from the deck below Emily Gran- 
 ville saw this, too, and, terrified, fled from suc- 
 coring hands. She saw only a fiend at work. 
 
 " Twenty minutes! No longer! Lights ten 
 minutes! " shouted the quartermaster strug- 
 gling to his side. 
 
 " What about the steerage? ' 
 
 " Gone like rats! Whole bow's gone! " 
 
 He pantomimed him to take charge of a boat 
 forward on the starboard side. A grimy en- 
 gineer came through the crowd and reported. 
 Others came and accepted his mastership men 
 who needed but to be told what to do to find 
 their bearings and run in them. 
 
 Like a flame he moved upon that deck. Who 
 he might be few knew, but wheresoever he went 
 disorder became order and the spirits of brave 
 men grew stronger and smiled at death as upon 
 a friend. Like another self the shadow of the 
 flame there moved Chang whither he went, 
 30
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 striking as he struck and lifting up as he lifted 
 up. 
 
 Of a sudden Lavelle saw Emily Granville 
 standing in the port gangway of the smoke- 
 room house, alone, hesitant, terror-stricken. 
 She saw him and as he ran to her with open 
 arms she drew back and then, remembering that 
 he had but turned away from a boat in which 
 she had seen him put a little girl, who cried that 
 God must be upon the sea, she paused in her 
 flight. 
 
 In that instant the guards whom Lavelle had 
 stationed there were swept away by a yellow 
 horde from below. It burst out of the gangway 
 and engulfed him in its tide. 
 
 There was an explosion as of a cannon fired 
 in the distance where another bulkhead gave 
 way. The ship lurched with a downward twist- 
 ing motion. The lights flickered and went out 
 and the pregnant darkness burst in disorder and 
 panic. 
 
 31
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 DAWN suddenly broke upon a sea snarling 
 under the lash of a heavy northeasterly. Emily 
 Granville, her eyes pressed against the black- 
 ness, saw it as from a mountain peak. The next 
 instant she was hurtling, twisting downward 
 through space, sightless ; her breath stopped. 
 
 The sensation of falling ceased. There was 
 a hardly perceptible pause amid a stinging 
 smother of spray and then came the sensation 
 of being lifted of rising swiftly. She caught 
 a breath and opened her eyes ; and again from a 
 seeming great height she beheld in awe the 
 youth of the day striding across an angry waste 
 of waters. 
 
 The terrific buffeting of the boat, under the 
 gunwale of which she crouched, had been going 
 on for hours. Until this moment she had been 
 only dimly conscious of it because the darkness 
 gives one no background ; no line of contrast by 
 which the mind may measure its impressions. 
 One thought only had lived persistently: that 
 her reason might leave her. It still endured. 
 But the human mind installed in a normal, 
 healthy body like hers does not break so easily. 
 32
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 No one becomes insane quickly any more than 
 one becomes a thief quickly. A long process of 
 decay must precede. 
 
 As Emily's body readjusted itself to the 
 cockleshell's wild movements her senses began * 
 to recover their power of apprehension. She 
 realized that she was clutching a hand a hand 
 she remembered snatching out of the night as 
 the vortex of the sinking Cambodia seemed 
 about to suck the boat down to the deeps. 
 Through the eternity of blackness which had 
 passed its touch had been her link to sentient 
 life. She held it up now and saw that it was 
 the hand of a strong man, with a strange ring 
 of green jade upon it. The hand closed upon 
 hers gently and trustfully. 
 
 Then, she became aware that a weight was 
 upon her limbs and she looked down. A man's 
 head lay in her lap just free of the foaming 
 wash in the boat's bottom. It was the hand of 
 this man that she clasped and that was clasping 
 hers tightly. She bent closer, with a new fear 
 starting in her heart for the face was very 
 white. A stronger volume of light shot into 
 the heavens. It was the man Whitridge La- 
 velle ! 
 
 The boat plunged from the crest of a gray- 
 backed comber and ended its descent with a 
 
 33
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 racking jerk. Emily Granville was thrown 
 across Lavelle, her face pressed against his 
 spray-wet lips. She struggled to draw away, 
 but the sea, as if in mockery, held her close to 
 this man and weltered them in its spume. 
 
 When the boat rose again she straightened 
 with a shudder. A wave of horror mixed with 
 hateful revulsion swept over her. She tried to 
 pull herself away from him, but the weight of 
 his head and shoulders and a woman cowering 
 at her side pinned her down. She freed one of 
 her hands, but Lavelle 's held the other in a 
 grip which her strength could not break. 
 
 Then, gradually, her natural spirit of justice 
 and humanity assumed rule, overcoming even 
 what had been almost an obsession since child- 
 hood her repugnance of physical contact. The 
 water in the boat was so deep that she realized 
 that if she put this man's head away from her 
 lap it must sink. Perhaps he was dying per- 
 haps death had already claimed him and as this 
 thought came to her she saw the open wound 
 in his brow just back of another jagged -scar. 
 
 The humility of shame bowed her head and 
 her eyes filled with tears. This man had suf- 
 fered this wound for her sake; he had come to 
 her in the night when all hope had gone; he 
 had snatched her from the clutches of wild 
 34
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 beasts, who had shot him down even as he laid 
 her in this boat. It was because of him that she 
 lived. 
 
 She felt a tremor pass from Lavelle's body 
 into hers. His lips parted with a sigh and he 
 murmured something wearily. Then, his eyes 
 opened for a second. He looked up into her 
 face with the glance of a tired child, yet without 
 recognition, and her heart gave a sudden fearful 
 throb. She thought it was pity and knew it not 
 for the stirring of the eternal motherhood that 
 is in all women. 
 
 A gust of wind swept Emily's thick plaits of 
 golden hair across his face and his eyes closed 
 again, the while a faint smile flickered across 
 his lips like one returning to a pleasant dream. 
 He snuggled his head closer against the thigh 
 which was numb from pillowing it and the 
 woman did not move. 
 
 Chang, looking down from where he stood 
 over them in the stern, like a giant in bronze, 
 nursing the boat up to a sea anchor, alone had 
 glimpsed what had happened. He shouted 
 something which Emily could not understand. 
 Stooping quickly he slipped a hand through La- 
 velle's tattered shirt. 
 
 " More better," he said. " Him heart move. 
 Him live you live. Sab-bee 1 ' ' 
 
 35
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 The Chinaman's glance and the forceful nod 
 of his head conveyed a meaning greater than 
 his words. They implied a task for her per- 
 formance the doing of what was in her power 
 to do for this man. 
 
 A horrifying cry from forward straightened 
 the giant in a flash. One glance ahead and he 
 gave the big steering oar a mighty sweep. He 
 seemed to lift the boat bodily out of the water. 
 A stream of orders poured from his lips and 
 electrified every bit of life in the cockleshell, 
 save that in Lavelle. 
 
 It took but a glimpse overside to transport 
 these sea waifs from their horror of the night 
 into a terror of the day. Elsie of Shanghai 
 started from Emily's side into a sitting posture 
 only to hide her head again. A man with a 
 pointed black beard rose to his knees between 
 the second and third thwarts and gazed round 
 him in terror. Two of the three Chinese in the 
 bows seized oars and stood like warders at a 
 gate. 
 
 The boat was riding in a mass of planks and 
 railroad ties the deckload of the stranger 
 which had sent the Cambodia to the bottom. 
 Every sea was armed and eager with death. 
 Some carried their bludgeons and clubs openly ; 
 others hid them under their white-crested capes, 
 36
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 flashing them out treacherously and suddenly 
 as the boat rode wildly to the assault. The sides 
 and bottom of the boat would have* been no 
 more than paper under the slightest blow from 
 a piece of this wreckage : a touch and every life 
 in it would have been flotsam. Hunger, thirst, 
 and the terrors of the night were forgotten in 
 the menace of the battle which the yellow giant 
 at the steering oar captained with a master 
 hand. 
 
 The white man, kneeling between the thwarts, 
 began shouting orders and warnings. Chang, 
 his thick cue streaming in the wind, his jaw set, 
 his face as expressionless as a piece of parch- 
 ment, seemed oblivious of what this white man 
 did until he saw him start to heave his big form 
 to a standing position. Then he hurled a curse 
 at him that was like a blow a curse learned of 
 the sea and white men's lips. 
 
 But to the women the giant kept calling, 
 " Bimeby him all go way! " and there was faith 
 in his voice and it passed into their hearts. As 
 often as the boat shuddered from an assault 
 cheated of its death strength he abjured them 
 to be unafraid. No white man could have been 
 more gentle or thoughtful. 
 
 Through it all Emily Granville clung to La- 
 velle's hand as she had in the night. What the 
 
 37
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Chinaman had said kept forcing itself upper- 
 most in her mind if the man who lay across 
 her lived, all would live. 
 
 Even as Chang had promised the boat passed 
 out of the wreckage. The wind dropped sud- 
 denly and peace began its entrance into the 
 sea's worried blue bosom. The sun, leaping to 
 its day's work overhead, touched the boat with 
 its warmth. Emily, following Chang's glance 
 round the horizon, saw a speck away to leeward. 
 It might be another boat he told her. 
 
 " Hi ! " cried one of the coolies forward, 
 pointing up to windward where the broken half 
 of a boat went by. 
 
 " No good look him that way! " shouted 
 Chang, but too late. Emily and Shanghai Elsie 
 saw the grim sea grist and the body of a little 
 boy in pajamas tangled in it. Their eyes met 
 the Magdalen's and hers of the sheltered life 
 and they wept together, cheek against cheek, in 
 an understanding of woman's heritage of po- 
 tential motherhood. 
 
 In the midst of Chang's tongue-lashing of the 
 coolie who had discovered the wrecked boat, 
 Lavelle stirred into consciousness. Elsie was 
 the first to see his eyes open and stare upward 
 blankly. 
 
 " Thank God he is living," she murmured. 
 38
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 1 ' Thank God I ' ' and as she spoke he sat up with 
 a start, tearing his hand from Emily's. He 
 gazed round him wildly for a moment, his eyes 
 finally settling on Emily with a gleam of recog- 
 nition. 
 
 " You," he murmured in a tone of awe. 
 Chang's chattering went unheeded. He passed 
 a hand across his brow and at the touch the 
 bullet wound over his temple began to bleed 
 afresh. His head rocked with pain and he 
 pressed it in both hands until it seemed that he 
 must crush the skull. 
 
 " Don't, don't," Emily protested, but he did 
 
 not hear her. ' * You would better You are 
 
 ill. Lie down again, please." 
 
 " Somebody struck me Oh, yes they 
 
 shot me. I don't know I don't know why," 
 and a low moan escaped from him. 
 
 The Shanghai woman begged him to lie down 
 again, but he shook his head. He looked at his 
 hands. They were wet with blood. Then he 
 began to examine his shirt for something with 
 which to bind his brow. It was sleeveless; the 
 arms had been ripped out of the pits ; the body 
 of it was in ribbands. 
 
 11 If I had something to tie " Lavelle 
 
 began, and then called Chang. 
 
 " I have nothing," said Elsie, conscious for 
 
 39
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the first time that she had escaped from the 
 Cambodia in only a black satin kimono and the 
 flimsy silken nightdress which it covered. Even 
 as she spoke Emily struggled up from the 
 bottom of the boat to the fore-and-aft seat 
 against which her head had been resting. With 
 a splendid unconsciousness of self she opened 
 the long tan coat the one in which Lavelle had 
 first beheld her raised an outer black skirt 
 and with a swift movement ripped off the deep 
 hem of the night robe which it hid. 
 
 Lavelle was facing away from her, but he 
 opened his eyes at that moment to see the 
 strange man seated in front of him start up, 
 with a smile of strange curiousness in his dark 
 face. Emily saw this smile, too, with disgust, 
 and hesitated in her purpose. Then she leaned 
 toward Lavelle and said quickly : 
 
 * 4 If you will bend back your head a little. ' ' 
 
 He leaned toward her obediently and she ban- 
 daged the wound with an efficiency that brought 
 nods of approval from Elsie and Chang, both 
 ignorant of this woman's latent powers of 
 hardy usefulness and physical capacity the 
 heritage of a pioneer stock that had torn a world 
 out of a wilderness. 
 
 11 I thank you," said Lavelle simply and he 
 faced her. " Just as soon as I get this blood 
 40
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 pressure out of my head I will things will be 
 all right." She saw his jaw muscles flex with 
 the pain which tore at him, and his thoughts 
 were of the kindness and the bigness of heart 
 that would let this woman touch him. She felt 
 his eyes sweep over her from her slippered bare 
 feet to the crown of her head, but there was 
 something impersonal in his glance which cooled 
 the resentment which flushed to her cheeks. It 
 was not like the glance of the bearded man down 
 between the thwarts. 
 
 It was this man speaking loudly and in a 
 strange foreign accent, which she had unmarked 
 before, that turned Lavelle away from her. 
 
 " We cannot be lying here idly like this," he 
 was saying to Lavelle. He stood up as he spoke 
 and threw a leg over the after thwart. 
 
 " Who are you? " asked Lavelle quietly. 
 
 " If you had been about the ship you would 
 know, Mr. Lavelle," he sneered. " For your 
 information I am Orloff Eowgowskii. I am a 
 seaman an officer and I will take charge here. 
 These ladies are intrusted in my charge." 
 
 Not a muscle of Lavelle *s face moved. He 
 spoke over his shoulder to Chang. He asked 
 Chang something in Chinese only to have the 
 giant blaze over his head angrily at the man 
 who called himself Eowgowskii : 
 
 41
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Whachamalla you? Wliat for! You clay- 
 zee? " 
 
 The coolie drew the steering oar inboard, for 
 it was now nearly a dead calm. A shake of 
 Lavelle's head silenced his angry chatter in- 
 stantly. 
 
 " My serang Chang there tells me this is his 
 boat; that he has been in command since we 
 abandoned the ship." 
 
 11 Yes," interrupted Elsie, pausing in wring- 
 ing the water from her streaming black hair. 
 " We wouldn't have been here now if it hadn't 
 been for that Canton coolie." She broke off 
 quickly in Chinese and spoke to Chang. 
 
 " He is a very good sailor a very good 
 sailor," said Rowgowskii. " He will be of use 
 and I will use you, too, Lavelle properly, if 
 you behave. If not He shrugged his 
 
 shoulders. ' ' I have the means to enforce obedi- 
 ence." He glanced from Lavelle toward Emily 
 and Elsie. " We shall have order here, ladies, 
 and You may trust me." From them he 
 turned to Chang. ' * Tell those men to get that 
 sea anchor aboard and set that sail." 
 
 " My flen, you more better sit down. Huh! 
 You may get kill," said Chang. 
 
 " Mutiny already! " exclaimed Rowgowskii, 
 42
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 straightening and with his hand going toward 
 his hip. 
 
 " My God! aren't we miserable enough! " 
 shrieked the Shanghai woman. 
 
 Terror locked Emily's lips. 
 
 " Don't," said Lavelle quietly, but in a tone 
 fraught with menace. 
 
 " Get up out of that and go to your work! " 
 snarled Eowgowskii, and he whipped out a re- 
 volver. 
 
 In that instant Lavelle rose like a rattler from 
 a coil. There was a crunching of bone against 
 bone as his fist landed full in Eowgowskii 's face 
 and sent him spinning overboard. The weapon 
 spun in the air and fell at Emily's feet. 
 
 Lavelle staggered from the force of his blow. 
 His eyes closed and he put his hands to his 
 brow. He would have fallen if it had not been 
 for Chang, who caught him and stretched him 
 along the seat opposite Emily. There he 
 swooned. 
 
 Emily shrank forward and away from him 
 in terror. This was the Lavelle of the Yakutat 
 who filled her dreams; this the brute who had 
 shadowed her childhood and filled her nights 
 with fearful shapes. 
 
 ' * What a fiend, what a fiend, ' ' she whispered 
 to the Shanghai woman. 
 
 43
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " He's a white man you don't know you 
 don't understand," Elsie answered and raised 
 a barrier between them with the words. 
 
 Both women, looking over the side, saw Row- 
 gowskii swimming desperately toward the sea 
 anchor. His cries for aid went unheeded by 
 either Chang or the three coolies who were 
 cowering in the bows. Chang picked up the re- 
 volver from the bottom of the boat. The act 
 was portentous. 
 
 " For God's love ! " cried Elsie, beginning an 
 appeal which trailed off into an outburst in the 
 Chinese tongue. 
 
 Chang shook his head obdurately. He nodded 
 toward Lavelle. 
 
 " They're going to let him drown," she told 
 Emily hysterically. ' ' Weren't enough drowned 
 last night? This Chinaman will not do anything 
 unless Captain Whitridge tells him." 
 
 " Him bad man. More better die," said 
 Chang to Emily. 
 
 Again there was a cry from Rowgowskii and 
 the boat moved with a quick jerk as he caught 
 hold of the anchor drogue. 
 
 These cries brought to Emily Gr anvil! e a 
 memory so poignant and vivid that action was 
 born of the shock. She moved swiftly from the 
 44
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Shanghai woman's side and shook Lavelle by 
 the shoulder. 
 
 " Tell these Chinamen tell them not to let 
 this man drown ! ' ' she cried at him. 
 
 Lavelle sat up with a moan. His head 
 dropped forward. 
 
 " Don't you hear! Haven't you murdered 
 enough already? Are you altogether a fiend? 
 Hear him crying now! " 
 
 Lavelle straightened. She shrank from the 
 glance he leveled upon her. It was defiant, fear- 
 less, burning with challenge. 
 
 " I never : His lips, forming in a tense 
 
 straight line, cut the speech off sharply at the 
 breath of another word. The old look of pain 
 came into his eyes the pain she had seen there 
 when he stood at the desk in the steamship 
 agency and he turned away. 
 
 Bowgowskii had crawled along the drogue 
 and was hanging now to the bow. Lavelle 
 hurled an angry order in Chinese at the coolies 
 forward and they sprang to their feet. They 
 dragged Kowgowskii aboard and dropped him 
 in an exhausted, shivering heap. 
 
 Chang moved aft to where Lavelle sank 
 wearily on the seat built against the air-tank 
 casing and handed him the revolver. He began 
 an apology. 
 
 45
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " More better him dead," he said, and Lavelle 
 silenced him with one word that made the giant 
 cower beside him like a dog under a lash. 
 
 Emily, seeing this, wondered, for she recalled, 
 with a shudder, the fierceness of this big yellow 
 man in the night. 
 
 46
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 As the dawn had come quickly, BO order 
 sprang out of chaos under Lavelle's quiet voice 
 of command. There was no shouting ; no bluster 
 a certain proof always that it has been given 
 to a man to speak with authority. A word 
 more often it was but a nod or a wave of the 
 hand and as if by magic these yellow men 
 translated it into some needed action. 
 
 One of the first things Lavelle caused to be 
 done was the moving of the boat's two water 
 breakers aft. He gave each one a drink, appor- 
 tioning to the coolies what he gave to the others 
 and even rousing the Russian for his share. 
 When it came to his turn to drink he paused 
 and, with one scarred arm resting across his 
 knee, looked out across the sea mystically. He 
 turned quickly toward the women, after several 
 minutes. 
 
 " I wish to say a word to you, Miss Gran- 
 rille," he said in the quiet low tone which 
 seemed to be invariably his manner of speak- 
 ing. His glance rested on her but for a mo- 
 ment, and then passed to Elsie. " And to you, 
 too, Mrs. Moore : I want you both to know that 
 
 47
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 I am very sorry that this terrible thing lias 
 happened to you. Yet women can be brave. I 
 have met brave men, but never any braver than 
 you two women at this moment. Because you 
 are brave I have chosen to speak to you as I 
 am doing. I want you to feel to know that I 
 appreciate your trying position. I will en- 
 deavor to make things as easy as I can for you 
 so you may not be ashamed as I should 
 wish my mother and my sister to go unashamed. 
 We may be together only a short time maybe 
 a very long while. Long or short, every one of 
 us is going to be called upon to show the utmost 
 patience and forbearance fortitude. God will- 
 ing, we will pull through and I will give my 
 life willingly to that end at any moment. If I 
 
 should be taken from you " A sob from the 
 
 Shanghai woman interrupted him. " No; one 
 never knows what may happen. There is 
 Chang, and you may trust him as I expect you 
 to trust me implicitly. A moment ago you saw 
 something " His glance went to the Rus- 
 sian, and Emily understood. " That was neces- 
 sary, but I don't wish you to understand this 
 to be an apology or an explanation. I think I 
 did wrong in not letting that man drown in 
 not killing him." Emily turned her face away 
 with a shudder. * ' You may think of me as you 
 43
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 please. It is immaterial, but obedience I will 
 have and must have from every soul here." A 
 harshness as of a steel blade meeting a steel 
 blade displaced the gentleness in his voice. 
 " The sea is very treacherous very treacher- 
 ous. One must be in order to fight it. That is 
 all." 
 
 Glancing up, Emily saw Lavelle gazing out 
 over the water again, seemingly oblivious of 
 the boat. The bearded man forward groaned. 
 He sat up and the sight of his bruised and 
 broken nose his face swollen beyond resem- 
 blance to what it had been only a little while 
 before renewed in all its strength her feeling 
 of revulsion against Lavelle. She grew sick at 
 the thought of the brutish force of him who 
 could maul a man like that with one blow. 
 
 49
 
 CHAPTER vrn 
 
 THAT night at midnight, when Lavelle re- 
 lieved Chang at the steering oar, the Chinamam 
 told him that it was hopeless to go as they were 
 going. 
 
 " This boat no can do. Go loo'ard all time. 
 All same like crab go sideways." 
 
 Lavelle had observed this early in the after- 
 noon when the wind had sprung up from the 
 northeast and he had laid a course to the east- 
 ward. Such boats as this, lapstreaked and air- 
 tanked, practically keelless and without center- 
 board or leeboard, were never built for sailing 
 and least of all on the wind. 
 
 a See," said Chang, flashing an electric 
 pocket torch which had been found among the 
 boat's outfit. " Look him now, master." The 
 light was on the boat compass. " Make Lira 
 now eas' by sou'. One time turn all loun'. 
 'Mother time eas 'sou 'eas' sou 'eas' by eas'- 
 fi' slix ploint off wind. No good! All same 
 dam sklare lig ship." 
 
 Lavelle ordered Chang to turn in and the 
 serang handed him the Shanghai woman's tiny 
 emerald-studded watch the one thing of value 
 50
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 that remained of all her years of trafficking. 
 She had turned it over to Lavelle to keep the 
 boat's time. The Chinaman curled up obedi- 
 ently under the lee gunwale, pausing as he sank 
 into the darkness to inquire if the " caplun's 
 topside " still hurt. Lavelle told him that the 
 pain had gone out of his head completely and 
 Chang grunted in satisfaction. 
 
 In the first fifteen minutes of his watch La- 
 velle realized the truth of all that Chang had 
 told him. It was impossible to keep the boat on 
 an easterly course. The leeway she made in 
 only the light breeze that was blowing was ap- 
 palling. She was not making more than three 
 knots an hour. The breeze which had persisted 
 out of the north since the afternoon he knew 
 for the first breath of the trades although it 
 was a degree or two above their northern limit. 
 With provisions for twenty days and only a 
 week's supply of water he had to admit to him- 
 self that he was courting destruction to try to 
 make the chain of islands Midway, Oceana, 
 Gardner, and Laysan stretching away to the 
 northwest of the Hawaiian group. 
 
 Of a sudden something which he had strug- 
 gled all day to visualize came to his mind's eye. 
 He saw a pilot chart of the region as vividly 
 as if it were spread before him on a lighted 
 
 51
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 table. It was here that an offshoot of the Japan 
 Current set to the westward at from twelve to 
 thirty knots a day I 
 
 The thought straightened him with a start. 
 To the westward lay two thousand miles of 
 empty, unfrequented sea until one nearly 
 fetched the coast. To the northwest twelve hun- 
 dred miles at the least, lay the lanes of the 
 liners a bare chance there of salvation, if a 
 ship sighted one. But with the trades and cur- 
 rent against such a helpless craft, there was but 
 one thing to do : take no chances. To the south- 
 west, twelve or thirteen hundred miles away, 
 lay the Ratack Chain of the Marshall group, 
 with the Marianas impinging on its western 
 axis. Under the drive of the trades, sailing 
 before the wind, the boat, with driving, should 
 make between one hundred and one hundred and 
 twenty miles a day; and twelve days of such 
 sailing meant land underfoot and life! His 
 heart throbbed at the thought. It meant life 
 for her his gold woman and suddenly he real- 
 ized that all his thoughts were of Emily Gran- 
 ville. 
 
 With a skillful sweep of the oar he brought 
 the boat round and put her before the wind. 
 By the flash of the electric torch he laid the 
 course southwest. The craft instantly did 
 52
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 better and surprised him into speaking aloud, 
 as boats do surprise men : 
 
 " This is your best sailing point, old girl." 
 
 In the silence that followed he became con- 
 scious of somebody moving in the boat. There 
 was a low murmur of voices. It made him un- 
 easy until he located it finally in the space be- 
 tween the second and third thwarts which he 
 had assigned to the women. He had partitioned 
 it off with a steamer rug which Chang had 
 taken away from Rowgowskii. A hand pushed 
 back a flap of the rug and Emily Granville 
 crawled out and stood up timidly. 
 
 Lavelle flashed the torch in the bottom of the 
 boat and she came toward him uncertainly. He 
 became conscious for the first time of the pov- 
 erty of her dress as he saw her ankles gleaming 
 in the light. She was not wearing the long tan 
 coat now. A golfing jacket and a short black 
 skirt, which it had covered during the day, com- 
 posed her attire as she revealed herself in the 
 torch's gleam. 
 
 " Do you mind if if I come out here with 
 you? " she whispered timidly. 
 
 " Certainly not," he whispered back, moving 
 further aft to make room for her and sure that 
 she must be able to hear the pounding throb 
 of his pulse. 
 
 53
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I have been awake for hours." 
 
 " You should make an effort try to get all 
 the sleep possible. It brings strength and for- 
 getfulness, too." 
 
 " Not always, but I came I thought you 
 should know that Mrs. Moore seems very ill." 
 
 11 There is something I can do for her? ' 
 
 " I think think not." There was a note of 
 hesitancy in her voice and Lavelle caught it. 
 
 " Is there nothing you can do, Miss Gran- 
 ville? " 
 
 " She is burning with a terrible fever." 
 
 " Water? Is that it? " he whispered very 
 low. 
 
 " Yes, but she told me I was not to ask. She 
 is very plucky." 
 
 " And you were afraid to come to me? 
 Afraid I would refuse? ' 
 
 " Yes," she answered slowly. " But I am 
 here and and I did not ask. I don 't know why 
 I came." 
 
 Without another word Lavelle flashed the 
 torch on a breaker at his feet. At a nod of his 
 head she slipped down from the seat to the 
 bottom of the boat. He handed her a tin cup 
 from the air-tank locker. Somebody stirred 
 forward and he snapped out the light until they 
 were still. The spirit of conspiracy made her 
 54
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 crouch lower. She hardly breathed until he 
 turned on the light again. 
 
 The torch made her glorious head glow 
 vividly. It transformed the thick braids falling 
 over her shoulders and across her bosom into 
 bands of filagreed gold. A mist of pity swept 
 his vision. 
 
 " You take a drink; you are thirsty, too," he 
 said, bending so low that his lips nearly touched 
 her head. She turned her face up to him 
 quickly and shook her head. 
 
 " It wouldn't be fair." 
 
 ' ' I will make it fair, ' ' he answered. 
 
 Impulsively, with a thirst which burned her 
 throat a thirst such as she never dreamed she 
 would know she drank. It was only a sup that 
 she took, but in the instant she wet her lips she 
 was ashamed of what this man might think of 
 her. She started up quickly, taking the hand 
 he held out to her. 
 
 " You have not done wrong," he whispered. 
 She shuddered that he had sensed her thought. 
 4 ' I will straighten this out. Say to Mrs. Moore 
 that I sent the water. ' ' 
 
 Turning to go forward, Emily paused with a 
 start. 
 
 " See ! " she exclaimed. " What is that? " 
 
 She pointed to where a light moved low along 
 
 55
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the dip of the southern horizon. Lavelle recog- 
 nized a steamer's masthead light at a glance. 
 In that instant it passed out of sight. 
 
 " Only a shooting star," he answered, for he 
 would not add to her misery, and she left him 
 alone in the night, undreaming of the bitter 
 thought that was smiting him. 
 
 If he had put the boat on her present course 
 an hour sooner he undoubtedly would have 
 crossed that vessel's track. 
 
 56
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was not to sleep that Emily returned when 
 she carried the water to Elsie of Shanghai and, 
 crouching in the cramped space, took the wom- 
 an's scorching head in her lap. Elsie was mur- 
 muring in a semi-coma, sometimes in English, 
 but more often in Chinese. Occidental though 
 she was, this woman's long, hard years in the 
 gateways of the Far East had breathed in her 
 the Orient's spirit of fatalism. The stoicism 
 of the children of the sunset lands was hers; 
 the immobility of feature which marks them was 
 sealed in her striking, irregular features. Her 
 manner of speech and expression were theirs. 
 
 " I wonder if they will burn me in hell this 
 way," she gasped as Emily put the cup to her 
 avid lips. 
 
 " No, no, you mustn't have such thoughts," 
 Emily whispered. 
 
 Elsie was in pain. The difficulty with which 
 she breathed told that. Yet only now and then 
 did a hardly audible moan escape her lips. 
 
 * ' He said I must be brave that I was brave 
 that I must be patient," and Emily Granville 
 knew that this strange woman was thinking of 
 
 57
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 what Lavelle had said to them in the morning. 
 " Did you ask him the captain for this wa- 
 ter I " she asked after a seemingly very long 
 time. 
 
 " No," Emily told her with a feeling of guilt. 
 ' * He made me bring it to you. He said it would 
 be all right." 
 
 1 ' God, what a white man what a white man ! 
 Oh, I know men, my dear child," and Emily 
 imagined that a sneer was upon her lips. " I 
 know them as the Canton money lenders know 
 their gold." She spoke with a fierce tenseness. 
 " I've trafficked in them traded in them as 
 they trade in guns and opium at Macao." 
 Her breath stopped in a quick gasp. Emily 
 pressed another sup of water between her lips. 
 
 " Are you afraid of death, my dear? " Elsie 
 whispered. 
 
 " I I don't know But you mustn't 
 think these terrible thoughts," and yet as she 
 spoke Emily Granville wondered at the Calm- 
 ness which possessed her. A different person 
 than the Emily Granville she had known for 
 twenty-four years seemed to be speaking and 
 thinking in these wild and strange surround- 
 ings. 
 
 " I will not get better I know," said the 
 Shanghai woman presently. " It is pneumonia 
 58
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 again the women of the lighted houses cannot 
 stand the open." She sat up quickly, clutching 
 at her breasts. " I am like fire and lead in 
 here. Oh, God, it is so hard to breathe! " 
 " Can't I think of something to do for you? ' 
 " Only hold me just this way," and she sank 
 in Emily's lap again. " I saw the way you 
 held him. You are very kind. You were made 
 for for the mother of men strong men like 
 my my captain out there. No; do not draw 
 away from me. You would trust him if you 
 could have seen him him and that Chang 
 that night in Shanghai. There was a place for 
 everybody everybody but the women the 
 toys from behind the green jalousies. Ask 
 Chang he he will tell you. They picked us 
 out of the dark river. It's very dark now, 
 
 isn't it? Very dark " Her whisper trailed 
 
 away in a low moan. Emily tried to make her 
 take a drink of water, but she refused it. " Will 
 you say, * Our Our Father ' " and Emily re- 
 peated the Lord's Prayer very slowly and 
 sensed that the other woman 's lips were follow- 
 ing the words dumbly. ' ' Ask him my captain 
 please if he will not speak to me," Elsie 
 murmured after a long silence. 
 
 Emily heard a movement aft and, pushing 
 back the flap of the rug, saw Chang relieving 
 
 59
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Lavelle at the helm. The dawn was just pinking 
 the eastern sky. 
 
 Lavelle saw Emily's hand beckoning and he 
 crept forward. Elsie held out a hand to him 
 and he took it. Her pulse flashed to him a his- 
 tory of what she was suffering. A glance at 
 her face revealed to him the touch of death 
 upon it. 
 
 " I'm going away going home," Elsie whis- 
 pered. * * Will you hold The dawn ! ' ' 
 
 Lavelle understood her glance upward and 
 pushed away the rug. He got behind her and 
 lifted her into a sitting posture. She still clung 
 to his hand. 
 
 " Isn't it wonderful? " she asked, looking to- 
 ward Emily and then up into Lavelle 's face. 
 He nodded. " I am not afraid, captain. I've 
 learned last night I learned from you to die 
 unafraid. ' ' 
 
 A marvelous smile lighted her face. The 
 marks of her hard years sped from it forever 
 in the glow of the new day which suffused the 
 sea and the sky with a spirit of the infinite 
 mystery this waif of life was on the threshold 
 of solving. 
 
 " Our Father, who " she whispered. 
 
 Then, starting suddenly from Lavelle 's clasp 
 she put out her hands to the dawn. " Mother 
 GO
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 mother o' mine," she called ecstatically. 
 " Moth " 
 
 Elsie of Shanghai fell back into Lavelle's 
 arms, with a sigh of peace parting her lips in 
 a smile. 
 
 Emily looked up at Lavelle and, as he turned 
 away quickly, the pent-up misery and loneliness 
 in her gave vent in a flood of tears. The sobs 
 which she could not choke back aroused the 
 sleepers forward. Death had come and a soul 
 had sped so quietly that it had not disturbed 
 their slumbers. 
 
 Starting to his knees, Rowgowskii beheld La- 
 velle just laying the burden out of his arms 
 along the fore-and-aft seat near Chang. The 
 helmsman might have been an image. The 
 Chinese sailors arising from the bottom of the 
 boat were seized immediately by the awe of the 
 mystery that had so swiftly come among them. 
 They huddled together on their haunches, mut- 
 tering over some talisman held in common. 
 
 Emily followed Lavelle and sat at the feet 
 of the shell of clay, smoothing down the bedrag- 
 gled dress over the delicate ankles and feet. 
 
 " I you understand sometimes we can't 
 
 find words " he said to her gently, and she 
 
 nodded in understanding. Nothing he could 
 have said would have conveyed more to her. 
 
 61
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 The gentleness, the kindness, the comprehension 
 of this man were battering a breach in the bar- 
 riers of her terror and hatred of him. Falling 
 on her knees beside Elsie's body she prayed 
 for strength and fortitude and forbearance. 
 
 Emily started up amid a silence broken only 
 by the breeze and the boat snoring away before 
 it. Lavelle was sitting opposite, his gaze upon 
 her. She sensed in the faces of Chang and the 
 others a new mystery of expectancy. Lavelle 
 stood up and handed her into his seat. 
 
 One of the Chinamen crawled aft and passed 
 Lavelle a piece of rope and an iron block which 
 had been left in the bow of the boat when Chang 
 cut the fall away. Lavelle turned so that what 
 he did with these things was hidden from 
 Emily's sight, but she understood. As he faced 
 her again she saw that the block was fastened 
 to Shanghai Elsie's ankles, although he had 
 endeavored to hide it beneath the silken gown. 
 
 " Do you know would you wish to say a 
 prayer, Miss Granville? " he asked. 
 
 Emily stood up and met his gaze. He was 
 asking her to do something; he expected some- 
 thing of her and she was helpless. 
 
 " I know only the simple prayers of the sea," 
 Lavelle added. With that Emily found her 
 voice. 
 62
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ' * She she would want you to say those and 
 
 so would I if " Her eyes closed, and as 
 
 from a great distance she heard him intoning 
 the Lord's prayer. She realized that never be- 
 fore had she known its full meaning. There 
 came a pause and she looked up. The boat was 
 fluttering into the wind. The Chinamen, save 
 Chang, who had to stand to the helm, and Eow- 
 gowskii, were on their knees. 
 
 Lavelle stood with Elsie in his outstretched! 
 arms, facing an arc in the sky where a blush 
 of the dawn still lingered. The breeze seemed 
 to pause. As Chang checked the boat's way La- 
 velle bent over and laid the burden in his arms 
 upon the sea. So might a mother have put 
 down a child to rest. 
 
 " ' "We therefore commit her body to the 
 deep,' " he said very distinctly, " ' to be turned 
 into corruption, looking for the resurrection of 
 this body, when the sea shall give up her 
 dead.' " 
 
 His gaze lingered overside for a moment and 
 then he added: 
 
 " It's a clean grave, little woman." 
 
 Turning quickly away from the sea he seemed 
 another man. 
 
 11 Sail on 1 "he snapped at the helmsman. 
 
 63
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 EMILY would not eat until at noon tliat day 
 Lavelle commanded her to do so. Watching 
 him, she saw that he ate hardly as much as the 
 little that passed her lips. She did not see him 
 drink at all. Neither had he drunk at the morn- 
 ing meal. As she recalled this his words as he 
 had given her the water in the night came back : 
 " I will straighten it out." This was the way 
 he was " straightening it out." The thought 
 brought tears to her eyes and made her 
 ashamed. 
 
 The sense of loneliness that was borne of 
 Elsie's passing had grown upon her with the 
 hours. She was yearning for sympathy and she 
 would have turned to Lavelle, but she sensed 
 that somehow a new barrier had arisen between 
 them a wall not of her building, but of his. 
 When he spoke to her his voice was very gentle, 
 but neither his manner nor his speech invited 
 her to say anything. 
 
 As Lavelle lay down at Chang's feet, shortly 
 after luncheon, to take the sleep which he must 
 have to meet the night, Emily remarked in a 
 64
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 tone of anxiety that he had removed the ban- 
 dage from his head. 
 
 " Yes," he answered simply. " It is all right. 
 The clean salt air is a good physician. The sea 
 hurts, but it also heals if one will only let it." 
 
 His face might have been a mask. The gray 
 eyes closed wearily as he spoke and he buried his 
 face in his arm and away from the sun's glare. 
 
 The years had taught Paul Lavelle how to 
 suffer alone. He was suffering now. When he 
 looked up from Elsie's dead face that morning 
 into the gold woman 's he thought he saw some- 
 thing in her eyes to make him pause. He had 
 surprised the glance again, he imagined, as he 
 turned round from the burial. He knew life 
 too well not to understand whither a woman's 
 sympathy might carry her. 
 
 Emily, looking down at the long, lithe body 
 stretched in the bottom of the boat, kept re- 
 peating to herself: " The sea hurts, but it also 
 heals." She sought a meaning in the words 
 which she felt she had missed. 
 
 Eowgowskii, drawing near, interrupted her 
 thoughts with a pleasant salutation in French. 
 This big dark man had a finish and poise fa- 
 miliar to her world and he could talk with a 
 brilliance which made it possible for her to 
 forget momentarily the unpleasant familiarity 
 
 65
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of his black eyes, and the pendulous underlip 
 which signaled the sensuous animal in him. 
 During the morning he had made an effort to 
 be sincerely comforting and reassuring and she 
 was thankful to him. After a few idle words 
 Rowgowskii's gaze wandered down to Lavelle. 
 
 " He feels badly over the death of that 
 woman? " he asked, looking up at her with a 
 strange directness. Emily answered with a nod 
 of acquiescence. A smile passed over his face. 
 .With a significant shrug, he added: " I under- 
 stood aboard the ship the Cambodia that 
 they were tres intimes." He searched the face 
 of the golden-haired woman to see if his dart 
 had found a mark. But he mistook Emily Gran- 
 ville. She was not one who could be read as 
 one ran. She was silent. 
 
 " Men of his kind well, they are a strange, 
 strange lot," he went on. 
 
 " I have no desire to discuss Mr. Lavelle," 
 said Emily. 
 
 ' ' Of course not. Pardon me, Miss Granville. 
 I was told the painful story aboard the ship. I 
 understand your feelings. You will pardon me, 
 I hope. It is because of what this man is that 
 I fear for you. These Chinamen would do mur- 
 der at his word. He is armed; I am helpless, 
 but I will find a way." 
 66
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Rowgowskii leaned nearer and whispered: 
 
 ' ' We should be sailing in the opposite direc- 
 tion. Did you know that, Miss Granville? 
 Over to the east we should be going." 
 
 Emily met his gaze now, with a pallor be- 
 ginning to overspread her face. 
 
 " But do you think he does not know! " she 
 asked, and her voice trembled. 
 
 " If you will remember it was he this man 
 who changed the course of the Yakutat," an- 
 swered Eowgowskii. " I have been thinking 
 that you might induce him to change to do 
 right." 
 
 Consternation seized her at the mention of 
 the Yakutat. It bore quick doubt in her heart ; 
 then fear. Her new faith was torn from its 
 moorings. Her mind lost all sense of its bear- 
 ings. 
 
 " Why have you not spoken to him? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " I mentioned it this morning. He ignored 
 me. That Chinaman there ' he indicated 
 Chang with a glance " that beast there told 
 me that I could walk ashore if I did not like 
 the way things were done here." 
 
 Neither had observed Chang for some time, 
 but now Emily looked up at him and was 
 startled by the steadiness with which his gaze 
 
 67
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 was fixed dead ahead. He stood tense like a 
 hunting dog at a point, his nostrils twitching 
 nervously. Rowgowskii followed the direction 
 of the giant's gaze, but could see nothing. 
 Emily started to speak to Chang, but her lips 
 opened only to gasp. 
 
 * ' Land ho ! " cried Chang. 
 
 " Where away? " answered Lavelle, leaping 
 to his feet. 
 
 " Two points starboard bow, master," and 
 Chang pointed one of his powerful and sinewy 
 arms straight ahead. 
 
 Emily, Rowgowskii, and the coolie sailors 
 looked eagerly in the direction in which he 
 pointed, but could see nothing. They turned 
 toward Lavelle, who, with his hands shading 
 his eyes, was driving his gaze toward the south- 
 west. The tensity of the moment was terrific. 
 It impinged upon him in every glance. He was 
 the commander; his was the task to bring this 
 boat to land; his was the responsibility. They 
 saw his lips move as if he counted something. 
 As he finished he dropped his hands. 
 
 "It is land," he said, speaking directly to 
 Emily, and his voice trembled. " We should 
 be up with it before sunset, Miss Granville. 
 God grant it means your succor your deliver- 
 ance." 
 68
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ' ' What land is it ? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 " I don't know. It puzzles me." 
 
 * * I saw you counting what was that T ' ' 
 
 " Trees I was able to make out three." 
 Turning to Chang he said : ' * Haul her up until 
 you bring the land two points off the lee bow 
 and then let her go." 
 
 Emily noted that Lavelle's voice rang with 
 genuine happiness. 
 
 With the enthusiasm of a boy Lavelle next 
 ordered a drink of water for all hands in cele- 
 bration of Chang's discovery. Never was a 
 health in rare wine drunk with finer apprecia- 
 tion than the simple tepid draught which these 
 waifs quaffed from a tin cup. 
 
 Lavelle took the helm himself and a half-hour 
 before sundown fetched a low-lying island 
 which appeared to be between three-quarters of 
 a mile and a mile long from north to south and 
 about half a mile broad. It had a rise in its 
 center like a camel's hump. The northern side 
 of this and the lower land abutting upon it were 
 sprinkled sparsely with cocoanut palms. There 
 was not a visible sign of life. 
 
 Emily, standing alongside of Lavelle as they 
 came within sound of the sea breaking against 
 the island's weather shore, saw the happiness 
 which had come into the commander's eyes sud- 
 
 69
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 denly depart. It was replaced by an intense 
 seriousness. She could not help asking what 
 was the matter. 
 
 " Nothing," said he simply, but she felt that 
 he was withholding something from her. 
 
 Lavelle was reading signs which made him 
 pause. First he had noticed the absence of any 
 reefs an invariable and natural formation of 
 islands in that region of the world. The shore 
 rose abruptly and sheer from the sea. The land 
 was brown and raw-looking. 
 
 The wind was heightening, and this fact, in 
 combination with the swift approach of dark- 
 ness and the unweatherly qualities of the boat, 
 determined him to abandon a momentary im- 
 pulse to seek the lee side of the island. 
 
 Just to the southward of the hump or camel's 
 back Chang sighted what seemed to be a beach. 
 With the coolies and Eowgowskii at the oars 
 Lavelle laid the boat toward this point, bow on, 
 taking the precaution to drag the sea anchor 
 astern so as to prevent her from broaching to 
 in the heavy sea that was making. 
 
 Chang, with the painter in his hand, leaped 
 ashore as the boat grounded. One of the coolies 
 followed him. He heaved on the painter with 
 Chang and then ran back toward the boat to 
 keep her from slewing round. Lavelle saw him 
 70
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 reach the side of the boat. The next instant 
 he had disappeared straight down in the 
 twinkling of an eye. 
 
 Everybody in the boat looked on with dumb- 
 ness. Not even Emily cried out. They sat in. 
 their places appalled. 
 
 Lavelle took a running leap from the bo^r of 
 the boat and landed beside the laboring Chang. 
 With their combined strength they pulled the 
 craft safely clear of the water. Then, he ran 
 back and, before he would permit the others to 
 leave the boat, handed Emily ashore. 
 
 As Lavelle released the precious weight he 
 felt the ground under him wobble. Emily stag- 
 gered where she stood and reeled against him. 
 
 " I have forgotten how to walk on land," she 
 said in innocent embarrassment and with an 
 attempt at a smile. 
 
 Lavelle made no answer. His worst fears 
 were true. They had landed on a floating island. 
 Any moment might see it engulfed. 
 
 71
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LAVELLE caught Emily by the arm as the 
 island's heaving reeled her against him and held 
 her. The tense, startled expression which she 
 saw in his face drove the faint smile of embar- 
 rassment from hers. It frightened her. 
 
 She followed his glance, which was sweeping 
 their surroundings. They were standing in 
 what had evidently been the bed or course of 
 a creek or large brook. It gullied its way clear 
 across the island from east to west, following 
 the base line of the hill. 
 
 " What is it? " Emily asked in dismay. 
 " Something is wrong, captain." 
 
 Before Lavelle could form an answer the 
 island gave another heave. The shell of earth 
 rippled as if it had been so much water. 
 
 With a cry of terror and warning Rowgowskii 
 sprang away from the boat's side and went 
 scrambling up the hill. The two coolies, still 
 a-tremble with the fear which the sudden and 
 mysterious death of their mate a moment before 
 kad put in them, followed him shrieking. 
 
 Chang leaped to Lavelle 's side, the spot where 
 72
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 he had been standing filling with water as his 
 feet left it. 
 
 " Lun, master! I/on, lady!" shouted the 
 giant. 
 
 1 ' Come ! ' ' said Emily to Lavelle, starting to- 
 ward the hill. She took but a step. A sharp 
 cry of anguish, which she tried hard to suppress, 
 escaped from her. Her limbs refused to carry 
 her. They seemed to be breaking with the pain 
 born of the cramped life in the boat. 
 
 With a murmured word of understanding La- 
 velle snatched her into his arms and carried her 
 halfway up the hillside. Chang pushed him as 
 he went. When he put her down in a mat of 
 grass and taro plant tops she still clung to his 
 hand as a child might have done. 
 
 On this higher ground the movement of the 
 island was not less terrifying. 
 
 " Was is it an earthquake! " Emily whis- 
 pered in awe. 
 
 Lavelle shook his head. His gaze went 
 searching up to windward and then darted 
 across the island to leeward where the sun was 
 tobogganing down a bright yellow sky such a 
 sky as invariably presages wind. He turned to 
 windward again. 
 
 For an instant despair overwhelmed him. 
 This islet was but a bit of waif land the bait 
 
 73
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of a cruel trap which the sea had set for him. 
 Even as he watched it the surf piled higher and 
 higher against the sheer weather shore. This 
 was the fanged jaw of the trap; and it was 
 closing. The swiftly rising wind which whipped 
 his face seemed to chuckle in glee. 
 
 To drive the heavy boat through that surf 
 and back to sea was a task which seemed to 
 him to be beyond the force at his command. 
 Nor could that crew get it across the island to 
 make a launching from the lee side. 
 
 Despair enters the breasts of strong men only 
 to refuel their fires of determination. So it 
 was with Paul Lavelle. Emily saw the gloom 
 pass from his face. A conquering light of reso- 
 lution succeeded it. His jaw set again in its 
 familiar line of purpose. Thus she had beheld 
 him on the deck of the doomed Cambodia. Thus 
 he had looked as he had come to her that night. 
 
 " We must put to sea again," said he, facing 
 her quickly and in his tenseness pressing the 
 hand with which she was clinging to him. He 
 read her apprehension. " Morning may see 
 this bit of earth mixed with the ocean. It is 
 but a piece of waif land a thing without an 
 anchorage something torn from its mother 
 mass by the ocean in anger. For us it is a trap 
 one of the sea's countless treacheries." He 
 74
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 glanced over his shoulder at the surf. " There 
 is no time to lose," he added. 
 
 Emily met this revelation of new peril so 
 calmly that Lavelle paused in wonderment as 
 he swung away from her. 
 
 " Can't I do something to help you? " she 
 asked. She might have been craving a boon, 
 
 ' ' Just hold to your faith. We '11 win through 
 if you keep that, won " 
 
 The wind snapped his words off there. She 
 did not know that he had hailed her as * * wonder 
 woman." Yet she glowed at the glance of frank 
 admiration which had accompanied his words. 
 
 Lavelle called Chang. The giant started up 
 from his haunches a few feet away, where he 
 had been crouching and listening with eager 
 ear to every word which had fallen from his 
 master's lips. 
 
 " Him clay-zee islan', master! No good! " 
 avowed Chang. 
 
 " To sea! " was Lavelle 's answer. He drove 
 his purpose into the serang with those two 
 words and a gesture. The giant hesitated so 
 long as it took to look from Lavelle to the surf 
 and back again. There, was doubt in his eyes. 
 
 " Jump! Night soon! " cried Lavelle. The 
 command electrified the serang. 
 
 Chang faced up the hill, beckoning and call- 
 
 75
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ing Rowgowskii and the coolies to descend. 
 They were perched on its crest like banderlog 
 hypnotized by fear. They did not move. 
 
 " Come down out of that! " yelled Lavelle in 
 anger at the white man and instantly repeating 
 the command to the coolies in their own tougue. 
 
 11 It is unsafe! I will stay here! " Row- 
 gowskii cried back. 
 
 The coolies, chattering to each other, settled 
 again on their haunches from which they had 
 half started. They were taking their cue from 
 the black-bearded white man beside them. They 
 would not trust themselves to the earth below 
 which trembled and swallowed things like the 
 sea. 
 
 "Bring 'em down, Chang!" snapped La- 
 velle. 
 
 The giant sprang up the hill at the order, 
 hurling at the coolies a curse which consigned 
 forty generations of their ancestors to an addi- 
 tional century of grilling in the fires of eternity. 
 It started them, but Eowgowskii did not move. 
 Then, out of Chang's belt flashed a long knife. 
 He raised it to hurl at the white man. 
 
 With uplifted hands and crying that he would 
 obey, Rowgowskii stood up. Chang lowered the 
 knife and paused in his ascent. The leader of 
 the mutineers motioned to the coolies to precede 
 76
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 him. They clambered along the rocks, darting 
 glances over their shoulders as if measuring to 
 descend as far from the reach of Chang as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 Whether it was Eowgowskii or one of the 
 coolies who did it neither Emily, Chang, nor 
 Lavelle, watching from below, could tell, but a 
 large round boulder was dislodged by the feet 
 of one of the three. It crashed down the hill- 
 side with the ricochet of a spending shell, 
 missed Emily by a hair's-breadth, and plunged 
 through the side of the boat. 
 
 TT
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A MOMENT of awful silence followed the de- 
 structive work of the boulder. Even the wind 
 seemed to pause in its flight and the sea in 
 its surging to behold what man would do in the 
 face of this disaster. 
 
 Eowgowskii and the two coolies lay in a heap 
 on a mass of loosened- earth on which they had 
 been swept down the hill in the wake of the 
 rock. Emily had risen to her feet where La- 
 velle had left her seated. Her gaze was fixed 
 on him. He stood with his back to her and 
 facing the boat. Chang stood to the eastward 
 of her, motionless. His gaze, too, was fixed on 
 the master. 
 
 Lavelle was the first to move. A stride car- 
 ried him to the boat. A glance revealed to him 
 a hole in the starboard bilge through which he 
 might have crawled without difficulty, big man 
 though he was. Four of the ribs were smashed. 
 The keel was shattered for half its length. Any 
 but the stoutest heart must have admitted the 
 craft to be an irreparable, hopeless wreck. 
 
 With a weird cry of insensate rage Chang, 
 who had run to Lavelle 's side, turned away to- 
 78
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ward Kowgowskii and the coolies. No one who 
 saw him and the manner in which he carried 
 his long knife could have doubted but that the 
 serang meant to visit instant death upon the 
 mutineers. His gigantic form trembled with the 
 passionate intention of the slayer. Rowgowskii 
 and the coolies stood in a paralysis of fear. 
 
 A word from Lavelle stopped the serang. 
 
 * ' More better kill ! Now ! ' ' cried the giant 
 to his master and with a characterization of the 
 mutineers that was blood-chilling in its 
 anathema. 
 
 " Give me that knife," ordered Lavelle 
 quietly. Meeting his gaze and holding it for a 
 moment Chang thrust the blade into Lavelle 's 
 hand. He was conquered, but the glow of an 
 heroic splendor was upon him. 
 
 " Kill me kill Chang, your servant, master." 
 
 There was a bare note of defiance in the 
 Chinaman's voice. He dropped his hands at 
 his sides in token of submission and bent his 
 head for the blow he invited. 
 
 ' ' I will kill when I choose to kill. Go. Clear 
 out this boat," said Lavelle. 
 
 " You are master," answered the serang, and 
 he turned to summon the mutineers. 
 
 Bowgowskii and the coolies under Chang's 
 driving began a rapid transportation of all of 
 
 79
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the boat's provisions and equipment to a point 
 halfway up the hillside indicated by Lavelle. 
 The master knew that this was no time for pun- 
 ishment. He must have every ounce of strength 
 he could command. 
 
 Straightening up from a contemplation of the 
 hole in the boat, his brain busy with plans of 
 repair, he looked toward the sea. 
 
 "I'm not beaten unless you drown me in the 
 next three hours," he flung in a mutter at the 
 growling deep. 
 
 Turning away, he found Emily Granville be- 
 side him. She was looking up at him through 
 a mist of tears. Her own misery of body and 
 soul had been swept away in the instant she 
 had heard the boulder go crunching through the 
 boat's thin skin. She could think only of what 
 this cruel stab of fate must mean to the man 
 captaining the handful of life which he had been 
 chosen to save. Her capacity to think of an- 
 other and not of herself in this common crisis 
 was a sign of growth which would have pleased 
 her if it had been possible to pause in self- 
 analysis. 
 
 And this man, meeting her pitying eyes, 
 smiled at her quizzically ! If he had confronted 
 her with a hopeless curse she would not have 
 been surprised. Now she could but gasp in 
 80
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 amazement. The comforting words which she 
 had planned to speak would not lend themselves 
 to utterance. In this second she realized 
 that thus would he meet death undaunted; 
 smiling. 
 
 " Fate is treating you very unkindly, Miss 
 Granville," said he. He spoke in his usual low 
 tone. 
 
 " Us," she corrected him, resenting, as she 
 had come to do all that day, his insistence upon 
 classifying her apart. 
 
 ' ' Us, then, ' ' he answered with a nod. 
 
 " Does this mean Is this the end! " she 
 
 asked calmly, and she drew his eyes to the hole 
 in the boat. His answer was a question. 
 
 " Do you feel that it is the end? " 
 
 " No," the woman answered, searching his 
 face and reading there a message of infinite 
 faith. 
 
 Yet even as she spoke the island was a-quiver 
 under the increasing force of the sea's assaults. 
 Nor had it been still at any time since they had 
 put foot on it. 
 
 " No man may tell the life of a floating 
 island," Lavelle explained. " In weather like 
 this it is very very short " 
 
 " Can you repair this boat? Do you intend 
 to mend this hole? " 
 
 81
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Her eyes opened in wonderment, for he 
 nodded affirmatively. 
 
 " Kemember what Browning said: ' To dry 
 one's eyes and laugh at a fall. And, baffled, get 
 up and begin again ' 
 
 "All clear, master!" called. Chang, inter- 
 rupting Lavelle and leaping out of the boat with 
 the mast and oars in his arms. 
 
 Lavelle summoned all hands. They heaved 
 the boat over on its undamaged side. With a 
 strength which peril had trebled, they dragged 
 it out of the miry, jelly-like ground on which 
 it lay and brought it to a ledge on the hill. 
 Man's work though it was, Emily Granville 
 gave her hands to it, with a strange new will, 
 heaving and pulling beside Lavelle until he 
 called that the task was done. And the while 
 she kept repeating to herself, " ' To dry one's 
 eyes and laugh at a fall. And, baffled, get up 
 and begin again.' " 
 
 Just as the boat was laid on the ledge the sun 
 dropped behind the horizon. 
 
 Eowgowskii had seen some wood while he and 
 the coolies had been on the hilltop. Of his own 
 volition he climbed after it and brought down 
 sufficient to make a fire. There was driftwood 
 also in the bed of the creek or gully and Chang 
 sent the coolies to gather it. 
 82
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 As the fire sprang up Lavelle worked the 
 faster where he ripped out the boat's after 
 air tank. With its metal he planned to cover 
 the hole. 
 
 No thought of food nor drink had he, though 
 he ordered Chang to serve rations to the rest. 
 Emily carried a cracker and a cup of water to 
 him, but he would not pause. 
 
 " Give me plenty of light; that's all," he an- 
 swered her urging. t ' Light to work by ' ' 
 
 A racking shudder passed through the island. 
 It flung Emily headlong. The earth on which 
 Lavelle knelt slid from under him. The island's 
 middle, following the base line of the hill, rose 
 like a monster cat arching its spine and hurled 
 him backward, stunned, breathless, helpless. 
 
 There was a breath-long silence. It ended 
 with a chorus of wild cries. Then, the great 
 earth mass fell with a thunderous crash, rend- 
 ing the island in twain. The triumphant sea 
 leaped out of the breach it had made and swept 
 the crumbling shore with a mighty wave. 
 
 83
 
 CHAPTER XIH 
 
 AWAKENING to a bewildered consciousness 
 Emily Granville opened her eyes in a glare of 
 light which stung her vision so sharply that the 
 lids shut instantly in intuitive defense. She 
 could feel the soothing warmth of a fire near by. 
 She was prone on her back. An attempt to 
 move her limbs produced a sensation of being 
 bound. Turning her head slightly from the 
 direction of the fire she opened her eyes again 
 timorously upon a sky burgeoning in a new 
 crescent moon and a myriad of stars. The 
 moon and stars seemed so close that she fancied 
 that all she had to do was lift a hand to touch 
 them. Lowering her gaze she saw the sea and 
 heard its wild white horses neighing. 
 
 With a cry of fright the castaway started into 
 full consciousness, every part of her racked and 
 a-throb with pain. By a great effort of will 
 she struggled into a sitting posture and then to 
 her knees. The firelight blinded her. All was 
 still within its radius. An apprehension that 
 she alone had survived the riving of the island 
 overwhelmed her. 
 
 She remembered the cataclysmic upheaval 
 84
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 which had flung her headlong as she stood be- 
 side Lavelle where he worked at the boat. She 
 had gone to him to ask him to pause but a min- 
 ute to take a little food and drink. He had an- 
 swered her harshly, she had been thinking ; and 
 then a mountainous wave had hurled him 
 against her; into her arms, in fact. She had 
 held him with all her strength, but the sea must 
 have been stronger. It must have taken him. 
 Her memory stopped there. 
 
 " Captain! My friend! " she called in an- 
 guish to the night. It returned no answer. The 
 wind lashed her face and throat as if deter- 
 mined she should be still. She breasted it with 
 the fierceness of abandonment, lifting her ach- 
 ing arms and sobbing to the heavens : 
 
 " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me! Why did you take him and leave me? ): 
 
 Even as this supplication burst from her 
 Chang entered the circle of light, carrying an 
 armful of wood. Kowgowskii followed at his 
 heels, similarly burdened. 
 
 " All lite, lady! No be flaid! " called the 
 Chinaman. He dropped the wood as he spoke 
 and ran to her side. Her gaze went expectantly 
 beyond him into the darkness. But the one for 
 whom she looked did not appear. 
 
 11 The captain where " 
 
 85
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Emily could not utter another word. She 
 sank back, supporting herself by one arm. She 
 was afraid to listen to the giant's answer. 
 
 " Him all lite bimeby, lady," said Chang. 
 
 Her heart surged in joy. 
 
 " He is alive? *' she gasped. " Where is 
 he? " 
 
 She straightened again on her knees. 
 
 Chang drew back the edge of the boat sail, 
 a part of which had also covered her. There 
 lay " The Shadow " of the lost Cambodia with 
 the bullet wound in his brow reopened where 
 the sea had mauled him. 
 
 " Thank God," Emily murmured, seeing La- 
 velle stir. 
 
 She crawled on her knees to his side and felt 
 the pulse of the hand which Chang drew out of 
 the canvas. Its faintness killed the gladness 
 which had come so swiftly into her heart. 
 
 11 He he is dying, Chang! " she cried. 
 
 " No can be; no can be," answered the China- 
 man with fiery emphasis. " Him more stlong. 
 Go-an get better more kliek. No can kill master 
 so leasy." 
 
 " How long has he been this way, Chang? " 
 
 " Not more one hour. How you feet, lady? " 
 
 For the first time Emily was conscious of a 
 tearing pain in her ankles and insteps. It was 
 86
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 more intense than the stab-like thrusts which 
 were piercing the rest of her body. Wondering 
 what conld have happened to her she turned so 
 that she could see her feet. The trim, delicate 
 ankles were swollen and the insteps were 
 bruised and bleeding. 
 
 " Velly solly, lady," said Chang soothingly 
 and in the manner of a father comforting 
 a little child. " You velly blave. You velly 
 stlong." 
 
 As he spoke the Chinaman gently lifted one 1 
 injured foot. She shrank from his touch and 
 put out a hand to thrust him away. 
 
 " You be 'flaid flor Chang! " asked the giant 
 wistfully. The glance with which he looked up 
 at her made the woman ashamed that she had 
 obeyed the impulse of littleness. She caught 
 Rowgowskii staring at her from across the fire. 
 His glance was a challenge to all the fineness of 
 her being. 
 
 * ' I beg your pardon, Chang. I am not afraid 
 of you," she said. She withdrew her protesting 
 hand. 
 
 11 You my master flen. He say by me when 
 I tell him you hoi' him ban' in boat: l Chang, 
 maybe I go-an die. All hell kom-men you go-an 
 save she.' Bimeby to-night when big sea kom- 
 men you save my master. You save Chang. 
 
 87
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 You like me die I go-an die flor you. You must 
 no be flaid." 
 
 The while Chang talked his long yellow fin- 
 gers were going swiftly over Emily's feet. A 
 surgeon's skill was in their touch. His head 
 was bent, hearkening, where he manipulated the 
 ankle and toe joints, for a sound which would 
 betoken a fracture. 
 
 " No bone bloke," he announced with finality. 
 
 ' * Thank you, Chang, ' ' Emily said gratefully, 
 and presently she drew from him an account of 
 what had happened following the upheaval. 
 
 Chang had been standing near the fire on the 
 hillside. He had been thrown down even as she 
 and Lavelle were. The island had broken apart 
 and a great sea had come and gone quickly. 
 The earth went out from under him. It flaked 
 away, carrying him down to the sea with it. He 
 could not stop himself. Just as he was rolling 
 over the edge of the cliff he felt an arm and 
 caught hold of it. It checked his descent. It 
 was Lavelle 's arm that he caught and, draw- 
 ing himself up, he found her clutching Lavelle 
 with both hands around his other wrist. Her 
 feet were twisted in the root of a tree which 
 the sea had washed out of the earth. It was this 
 root which had saved all of them. 
 
 Emily could understand now how she came 
 88
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 to feel like one who had been broken on a wheel. 
 She could not imagine where she had found the 
 strength to withstand the terrific forces which, 
 according to the giant's description, had beset 
 her. She believed she had acted unconsciously, 
 but at least, she thought, she had proved herself 
 not useless. She found comfort in this mo- 
 mentary reflection, nor did she suspect that a 
 great, new power a power like unto which 
 there is no other had dawned in her life. 
 
 " I catch him master," added Chang, " but 
 you hoi' flor him like a marther hoi' him litty 
 bit chile when him big bear kom-men in whiter. 
 Chang bring you here flor topside. You eye 
 close. Him master eye close. Him head must 
 flor stlike 'gainst boat: maybe lock hit him. 
 Him boat all go way. ' ' 
 
 A weary faintness made Emily's eyelids 
 droop for a second. Chang leaped to his feet 
 and crossed to the other side of the fire. She 
 watched him where he lifted one of the boat's 
 breakers and poured a cup full of water. He 
 was back in a moment offering it to her. She 
 drank sparingly. She refused to eat anything. 
 She asked how long it had been since the sunder- 
 ing of the island and when Chang told her that 
 not more than an hour had passed she found 
 it hard to believe him. It seemed to Emily 
 
 89 
 
 s
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 that it must have happened many nights before. 
 
 The giant's answer was hardly away from 
 his lips when a shudder went through the hill 
 on the crest of which he, driving Rowgowskii 
 to help him, had fixed the encampment and re- 
 built the fire. 
 
 " What florl Whachamalla you? " snarled 
 Chang at the menacing earth. The next breath 
 brought a scolding tone into his quaint voice. 
 " Him go-an be night velly long time, Mr. 
 Islan'. More better you go-an sleep, eh? " 
 
 The whimsicality of this speech and the half- 
 quizzical expression in Chang's face brought a 
 faint smile to the lips of the white woman. 
 
 " You're a rare soul, Chang," she whispered. 
 
 " Him all same clay-zee, dlunken sailor man, 
 this Mr. Islan','' the giant chattered on. He 
 saw that he amused Emily. And always he 
 spoke of the future certainly. So far as his 
 speech and manner were concerned he might 
 have been safe in port with a pleasant city in 
 view instead of on the border line of the world 
 beyond. Like Lavelle, he possessed the mar- 
 velous power of renewing one's faith. 
 
 Of his master the Chinaman spoke as the 
 children of the Orient speak only of their 
 strange good gods. He told how Lavelle nine 
 years before in Rangoon had saved his life from 
 90
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the murderous hands of a drunken, mutinous 
 crew and how his way thereafter had been the 
 captain's way and would be to the end. He 
 recalled, too, the night in Shanghai of which 
 Elsie had told her. He wrung tears from her in 
 recounting the fearful winning of the Kau Limg 
 to Yokohama. She saw the knife scars on the 
 arm lying outside the sail and the scars on 
 Chang's. The wounds of these men assumed 
 a sacredness in her eyes. 
 
 " My master all same Chang joss," was the 
 way the giant summed up his hero. ' * No 'flaid 
 flor enny-sling! Nobody! Him say, * Chang, 
 die. ' Must flor me die. ' ' 
 
 Emily recalled the strange scene between 
 them at the boat and she understood the truth 
 of this. 
 
 Lavelle, stirring with a moan, interrupted the 
 serang, who bent his head and listened, ear 
 close to the unconscious man's lips. 
 
 11 Him sleep now more better. No sleep las' 
 night. No sleep to-day. Him velly tli-ed." 
 
 Emily leaned over at the giant's whisper and 
 caught the measured, easy breathing of a tired 
 sleeper. Yet she heard something else also. 
 
 " home soon dearheart. Gold girl won- 
 der " he murmured, and Emily wondered 
 
 what manner of woman it was who was waiting 
 
 91
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 across seas for this man's home-coming. It was 
 not thus he would speak of the mother to whom 
 he had set out to return. It could not be such 
 a woman as Shanghai Elsie. The remembrance 
 of what Eowgowskii had said to her in the boat 
 flashed into her mind. She put it away in- 
 stantly. She resented it. She knew, as only 
 it is given to a woman to know, that it was 
 not to a mate like Elsie that this man would go. 
 " God bring him safely to her," she prayed 
 in her pity for the woman of whom " The 
 Shadow " dreamed, and she knew not that she 
 prayed for herself. 
 
 92
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DAY was breaking as Lavelle awoke to a real- 
 ization that he still lived. He found himself in 
 a silence so awful in its intensity and mystery 
 that it made him catch his breath sharply like 
 one does at a sudden immersion in cold water. 
 The peace of eternity seemed to have breathed 
 a spell upon the pitiless deep. It slept. 
 
 His long sleep had refreshed him and his 
 mind instantly leaped back to the events of the 
 night before. A glance round him discovered 
 Chang, a hundred feet away, searching the 
 horizon. Eowgowskii lay stretched on the op- 
 posite side of the fire. 
 
 Just as Emily had imagined him lost so La- 
 velle for a moment believed her gone. His 
 senses went crashing, but they reordered them- 
 selves instantly at the touch of a warm body at ' 
 his side. 
 
 Putting his left hand out to raise himself it 
 fell on Emily not half an arm's length away. 
 There exhausted nature had bent her head in 
 slumber at midnight when the wind hushed. 
 There Chang had covered her again with the 
 boat sail. She lay with her right arm under 
 
 93
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 her vivid head and her face toward the new 
 day. One long golden braid curled across the 
 hilltop's wet grass where it had been flung un- 
 consciously in her sleep. The other hung across 
 her exquisite bosom, rising and falling gently 
 with her breathing, and its end trailing the 
 ground. Such an expression as Lavelle had so 
 often seen in the faces of play-weary children 
 was in hers. 
 
 " Wonder woman," he murmured. " Won- 
 der woman." 
 
 Slipping out from under the sail, not daring 
 to breathe, Lavelle gently drew the canvas back 
 over the sleeper's shoulders and stole toward 
 the Chinaman. A slight giddiness assailed him 
 for a moment and with it there came a reminder 
 of the old pain which he had felt upon awaken- 
 ing first in the boat. 
 
 " Master, master," called the giant worship- 
 fully, springing toward him. 
 
 Chang's first glance was directed at Lavelle 's 
 forehead and what he saw there pleased him. 
 
 "Him all lite, master; all lite," he said. 
 "Him stop bleed." 
 
 But it was of the night that Lavelle would 
 hear, and the Chinaman rapidly unfolded the 
 wondrous tale of how their lives had been saved 
 by Emily. The wrecked boat was gone. Emily, 
 94
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Lavelle, Rowgowskii, and Chang alone remained 
 of those who had escaped in their party from 
 the Cambodia. The two coolie sailors had been 
 gathering wood at the foot of the hill when 
 the upheaval came. They were gone. At the 
 end he whispered : ' ' You lose him plistol out you 
 plocket. Nobody know only Chang, master." 
 
 The ocean bore no trace of the half of the 
 island which had been torn away. In the heavy 
 wind and sea which Chang reported of the first 
 part of the night it was Lavelle 's opinion that 
 the derelict mass, bound together only by a mat- 
 tress of interlaced roots and vegetation, must 
 have resolved its parts with the waters. 
 
 Owing to Chang's having placed the water, 
 provisions, and the boat's equipment high on 
 the hill when the craft had been emptied in the 
 evening, the sea had been able to steal but little. 
 The treacherous bit of earth which remained 
 offered, too, an important contribution to the 
 food supply in a wealth of taro plants, the tuber- 
 ous substitute of the potato in the islands of the 
 Pacific. It is of this that the Hawaiians make 
 their poi. I 
 
 By the bearing of the rising sun Lavelle noted 
 that the island had swung round completely 
 during the night. The side of the camel's back- 
 like hill, which had been toward the south the 
 
 95
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 preceding evening, was turned to the nortH- 
 ward. The crest of this hill was at least two 
 hundred feet above sea level. As the island 
 lay now its northern side sloped easily for per- 
 haps fifty yards and then broke off abruptly in 
 a sharp cleavage fifty feet sheer to the sea. 
 
 The hill's base was slightly less than the 
 island's half-mile width. A gentle slope marked 
 what had become the eastern shore; a straight 
 palisade rise of two hundred feet, the western 
 side. A gradual slope on the hill's southern 
 side blended at the foot with an undulating 
 meadow, green with grass and taro, and about 
 three-quarters of a mile in length. A lone palin 
 tree rose in the center of this patch. 
 
 The top of the hill presented a flat surface 
 of a city half -block square. At no distant time 
 a thatched hut had stood there. It was of the 
 remains of this that Chang and Bowgowskii had 
 built the fire. 
 
 While he sipped a cup of water which Chang 
 brought to him, Lavelle took stock of all these 
 things. Not one thought of solace could he 
 draw from the bitter, hopeless scheme which 
 unfolded itself to his gaze. By the time the 
 non-arrival of the Cambodia was read into dis- 
 aster and a searching ship sent into these seas 
 the end would have long since come to this 
 96
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 island. Well he realized the emptiness of this 
 stretch of ocean and the one chance in ten thou- 
 sand which might bring a stray merchantman 
 or trader stumbling upon them. "Well he 
 realized the slight tenure of the crust of earth * 
 which held him. Judging from its assumed 
 position it had drifted a phenomenal distance 
 for that latitude. He believed it must have been 
 ripped away from one of the islands of the 
 Hawaiian group. That it had survived so long 
 seemed to him miraculous and but emphasized 
 the imminence of its early dissolution. What 
 had already happened since the landing con- 
 firmed in his mind that the next storm would be 
 the mother of the island's oblivion and all it held. 
 Floating islands are uncommon in any but 
 the most placid waters. Yet in the phenomena 
 of the sea's scheme of things they are common 
 occurrences. The charts of all big waters are 
 dotted with their records. Shipmasters come 
 to port reporting an island where one was never 
 before and where it would seem against all 
 reason that one should be. Still man imbued 
 with the unconquerable mystery of the sea 
 writes this report on his charts for all times. 
 First he writes it as a fact, justifying its as- 
 sumption as such. According to its reported 
 size, ships go searching for it men-o'-war, 
 
 97
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 leisurely merchantmen, vagrant traders. No 
 island is found. Only sea is there. But man 
 does not trust the deep; he never will. He 
 does not erase his record. He marks it " P.D." 
 position doubtful. Years pass without fur- 
 ther report of an island in this locality. Then he 
 goes as far as he dares. He writes on his charts 
 " E.D." meaning " Existence doubtful." 
 
 How many a well-found ship, sailing in a sea 
 charted clear and deep, has blundered into 
 islands like the one which held the Cambodia 
 castaways and suddenly come unto her last 
 port! No man may tell. Seldom, however, do 
 ocean traffickers meet with these waif lands 
 north or south of the twentieth parallels. 
 
 With never a dream that this could be one 
 here in the thirties though the absence of reefs 
 and the raw and broken aspect of the island 
 shore had given Mm pause, Lavelle had trapped 
 himself. He had captained her, for whose salva- 
 tion he would gladly lay down his life, into a 
 prison to which death held the key. 
 
 It was with this bitter, self-blaming thought, 
 and tortured by it, that he turned away from the 
 sea to behold the gold woman coming toward 
 him with a wistful smile. He ran to meet her and 
 his soul cried out at the denial of its impulse to 
 fold her to his heart and soothe her hurts. 
 98
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THEEB days of life-renewing, hope-burgeon- 
 ing weather had followed that silent dawn 
 days of placid seas and gentle breezes; and 
 nights alight with stars and a growing moon. 
 The island had been motionless. It might have 
 been one of the Blessed Isles in a world where 
 life was everlasting. 
 
 Isle of Hope Emily had christened the bit of 
 floating earth, nor could she have told why 
 optimism reigned in her heart and soul. She 
 was unaware that she was reflecting only what 
 the manner of Paul Lavelle gave forth. His 
 every act and word was a reassurance of faith 
 and the motif of her ever-increasing wonder of 
 him. 
 
 Yet it was but a mask of service which La- 
 velle had determined to wear for this woman's 
 sake. He had put it on in that daybreak when 
 he had met her coming toward him and heard 
 her calling: 
 
 " We still live, captain. " 
 
 There had welled in his heart at that moment 
 the gentle Stevenson's prayer for grace a 
 prayer which had sustained Lavelle often in 
 
 99
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 peril and sorrow and it poured from his lips 
 to find an echo in the woman's, for she, too, 
 knew it: 
 
 " ' Grant that we here before Thee may be 
 set free from the fear of vicissitude and the 
 fear of death, may finish what remains before 
 us of our course without dishonor to ourselves 
 or hurt to others, and, when the day comes, may 
 die in peace. Deliver us from fear and favor; 
 from mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have 
 mercy on each in his deficiency : let him not be 
 cast down; support the stumbling on the way, 
 and give at last rest to the weary.' " 
 
 To help this woman's spirit to be unafraid 
 was all that was left for him to do for her. It 
 was the most he would ever be able to do for 
 her. Of this Lavelle felt certain. He knew the 
 sea too well to deceive himself with a false hope 
 that its kind mood would continue long. But 
 while life lasted it was his purpose to live it 
 fearlessly and as if years still measured the 
 span and not swift minutes. 
 
 Under his hand the discipline of shipboard 
 prevailed. There was not a moment, by day or 
 night, when a lookout for sign of succoring sail 
 or light went unkept. With Chang, his right 
 hand, Lavelle divided the night watches, not 
 trusting Eowgowskii. Even Emily, according 
 100
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 to her wish, helped in the tasks of preparing 
 the food and tending the fire by day. An out- 
 of-doors woman by tradition and inclination, a 
 powerful rider and swimmer, the pride which 
 she had always taken in her physical well-being 
 was standing her in good stead now. 
 
 Rowgowskii, in the first realization of the ex- 
 tremity which had come to pass, had abandoned 
 himself to despair. It was incredible that he 
 had ever been, as he claimed, an officer in the 
 Eussian navy, or otherwise a commander of 
 men. He was absolutely spiritless; an exem- 
 plification of the truth that cowards die many 
 times before their deaths. 
 
 But with the coming of the second day of 
 fair weather his funk lifted and he went to his 
 appointed tasks with a willingness which was 
 emphasized by his previous sullenness. 
 
 Having observed at the outset that the 
 island's wood supply was limited, Lavelle had 
 been husbanding it by burning sod. He used 
 the wood solely for the signal fires of the 
 night. 
 
 Now on this morning of the fourth day he 
 again put the Russian to cutting turf from the 
 hillside, the while he and Chang, armed with the 
 boat axe, set forth to cut down the palm tree 
 in the meadow. Rowgowskii, the preceding 
 
 101
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 evening, had suggested its addition to the signal 
 fuel. 
 
 " You will not be long, captain? " asked 
 Emily as Lavelle paused to look back at her 
 in leaving the crest of the hill. 
 
 " No longer than is absolutely necessary." 
 
 " And you you will be careful," she 
 warned, and unashamed of the tremulous note 
 of anxiety which crept into her voice. He 
 nodded. This man's presence had become very 
 necessary very precious to her. 
 
 " It's your watch on deck, you know," La- 
 velle called cheerfully. Then, with a quizzical 
 lowering of his brows and in a tone of pretended 
 sternness, he added: "Hold your course. 
 Steady as you go and keep a sharp lookout." 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir," she answered, simulating 
 the speech and manner of a sailor to an officer. 
 
 " You make him velly good sailor man," 
 Chang chuckled in delight. 
 
 "We'll be back in a jiffy," said Lavelle. 
 With that he and Chang swung away down the 
 hill. 
 
 Emily went to the edge of the slope and 
 watched them descend, the yellow man always 
 leaping ahead to test and examine the ground. 
 At the foot Lavelle looked back. He paused 
 upon discovering the watcher and waved to her. 
 102
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 An impulse to follow him seized her, but re- 
 membering that he had intrusted her with the 
 lookout she overcame it. With a wave of the 
 hand she answered his signal of cheer, and as 
 through a mist saw him go away from her across 
 the meadow toward the lone tree. 
 
 103
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 JUST as Lavelle paused at the foot of the hill 
 and waved his hand, Eowgowskii looked up from 
 where he was cutting turf on the eastern slope. 
 Unconsciously his hand went to his flattened 
 nose. It was an action which invariably had 
 come to accompany any glance which had La- 
 velle for its objective. 
 
 Emily was hidden from his view, but the Rus- 
 sian could imagine her standing up there on 
 the crest answering Lavelle 's signal. He knew 
 well, too, the light there must be in her eyes. 
 He had surprised it there many times in the 
 preceding three or four days, even as she had 
 startled the animal lust in his. 
 
 Rowgowskii dropped the piece of metal which 
 he was using for a cutting tool. It was part of 
 the boat's air tank with which Lavelle had 
 planned to repair the damage done by the 
 boulder. His gaze followed the two men cross- 
 ing the meadow until he saw Chang stop sud- 
 denly and look back. He started as if the China- 
 man had the power of reading his thoughts. A 
 guilty conscience is ever the quick prey of an 
 honest eye. With much show of industry he 
 104
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 picked up his cutter and resumed the stripping 
 of turf. This activity lasted but a minute. 
 Then, his gaze wandered around the empty sea, 
 only to return to the two men below. 
 
 In the second that the Russian's eyes picked 
 them up again a menacing oscillation passed 
 through the earth and brought him in terror off 
 his knees. He saw the Chinaman pitch head- 
 long out of sight. The next second whipped 
 Lavelle from his view. The palm tree remained 
 the single object in the meadow. 
 
 Rowgowskii hesitated a moment, hearkening 
 for a sound from above him or from the 
 meadow. The silence was unbroken save by 
 the purr of the morning breeze. 
 
 With the sneak of a stalking panther in his 
 tread he darted around to the southern slope. 
 A second's pause, a flashing glance behind to 
 reassure himself that " The Shadow " and the 
 yellow man were, indeed, gone, and he sprang 
 up the hill. 
 
 105
 
 CHAPTER XVH 
 
 EMELY held Lavelle and Chang in view until 
 they were halfway to the tree and the China- 
 man halted and looked back. It was as if the 
 giant had flashed a message to her. Her heart 
 gave a throb of apprehension. Her breath 
 caught in her throat. Her limbs trembled. She 
 realized that she was alone on the hill with 
 Kowgowskii. Only her own soul knew her re- 
 pugnance of this man which had grown with 
 the hours since they had come to the island. 
 
 Even as her mind bore the thought Emily 
 became ashamed of her trepidation and self- 
 consciousness. It was unworthy of the kind of 
 woman that Lavelle 's fearlessness of soul and 
 fortitude made her desire to be. 
 
 Mortified, and with a flush mounting her 
 cheeks at what she considered her mean selfish- 
 ness, she turned from the meadow and the 
 stretch of ocean southward. She walked across 
 the hilltop. North, east, and west her gaze met 
 an empty blue expanse of water. The hill oscil- 
 lated and she swayed with it unconscious of the 
 motion. Her attention was held by the glint 
 of a white wing high against the cloudless azure 
 106
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 sky to the northward where a frigate bird went 
 seeking a mate. 
 
 " Oh, if we but had your wings! " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " But we haven't," whispered a voice close 
 to her ear. With the words an evil, burning 
 breath struck her cheek and Rowgowskii's two 
 powerful arms encircled her. 
 
 At the touch there leaped to life in Emily that 
 furious strength which has been given to women 
 to defend themselves or their offspring from 
 besoiling or destroying hands. 
 
 With a shriek she twisted herself in the 
 brute's clasp and hurled him from her, but not 
 before he had succeeded in crushing his hot, 
 sensuous lips against her throat. She struck 
 him in the face with both hands clenched. Land- 
 ing where Lavelle had smashed him in the boat 
 the morning after the wreck of the Cambodia, 
 the blows drew blood and swept him from his 
 feet. He went over backward and, falling, 
 carried with him the boat mast which was 
 stepped in the center of the hilltop for a sig- 
 nal staff. 
 
 Sending a piercing shriek toward the meadow, 
 Emily ran toward the southern slope. Row- 
 gowskii staggered up in her path with out- 
 stretched arms as if to stop her. He hesitated 
 
 107
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 and stepped aside. The unaccountable action 
 arrested Emily. 
 
 "Go on yelling! >: he said wrathful ly. 
 ' ' There is nobody to hear. We are alone you 
 and I." 
 
 A sight of the meadow confirmed his words. 
 Lavelle and Chang were not there. 
 
 The Russian laughed as she faced him help- 
 lessly and incredulously, her strength, for the 
 moment, gone from her. She had no distinct 
 thought. The capacity of thinking and feeling 
 seemed to have never been. 
 
 " They went like that," the brute went on 
 with a snap of his fingers. " Just as we are 
 going to go in a in a very little while." A 
 lingering quaver went through the hill. He 
 started cravenly. " Feel that, eh? The end is 
 very near. ' ' 
 
 Emily was silent. Her gaze darted away 
 from her torturer and around the sea. It came 
 to rest for the smallest part of a second on the 
 western edge of the hill. Determination was 
 born of the thought which the glance sug- 
 gested. Here was a means of escape. 
 
 The cliff was perhaps an hundred feet from 
 where she stood. If she could only get over 
 there a step would carry her into the presence 
 of her God unashamed. Her purpose was 
 108
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 formed. There was nothing left for which she 
 cared to live. The camp fire was between her 
 and her goal, but she heeded it not. 
 
 Rowgowskii's gaze, following every move- 
 ment of the glorious figure of womanhood be- 
 fore him, set the fires of his fiendishness flaming 
 in new desire. He advanced a step in front of 
 her. She retreated a step. 
 
 ' ' I wonder if you would have treated Lavelle 
 this way if he had come to love you? Eh? " 
 
 There was no answer for him, but Emily's 
 lips moved in murmuring what her numbed 
 senses could recall of Lavelle 's prayer for 
 grace. 
 
 " Would you have treated him this way? 
 Tell me, ma beaute," he leered. He took an- 
 other step toward her. Again she retreated. 
 Still advancing, the passion of the brute in his 
 eyes scorching her, he said : 
 
 " Death will not be so unpleasant. You are 
 very beautiful. You " 
 
 His voice broke in a stammer. A piece of 
 burning sod rolled out of the fire behind his 
 prey. 
 
 1 1 Look out ! " he cried. 
 
 Emily gave no heed. She put one foot on 
 the sod and smoke curled up where it burned 
 through the sole of the canvas sandal which 
 
 109
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Chang had made for her. Then she lifted the 
 other foot beside it. 
 
 Nor did this woman cry out in pain nor a 
 feature so much as wince. An immortal glory 
 was in her countenance. The look she bent on 
 the man before her sent him back, cowering in 
 fear and awe. 
 
 110
 
 CHAPTER XVHI 
 
 IN the instant that the sublime spirit of the 
 gold woman conquered the beast who baited her 
 Lavelle burst over the crest of the hill from the 
 southern slope. 
 
 Like the captain of an avenging host march- 
 ing with banners of flame he came into Emily 
 Granville's vision. A pallor as of death was in 
 his face; a fire of irrevocable decision in the 
 glance with which he swept the scene before him 
 into his comprehension. 
 
 As that glance touched Emily she started to- 
 ward her deliverer only to stop. 
 
 Lavelle 's hand fell on Eowgowskii's shoulder 
 and hurled him round before him. The craven 
 crumpled to his knees. The beginning of a cry 
 of terror died in his throat in a mute gasp. 
 To him this man who stood over him was come 
 back from the dead. 
 
 11 Pray if you can," said Lavelle in a grim 
 voice of fate. He stepped back a pace as he 
 spoke. 
 
 It was a pronouncement of doom that he had 
 uttered. Rowgowskii's gaze went from Lavelle 
 to Emily. His hands went out to her in sup- 
 Ill
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 plication. His lips moved but made no sound. 
 
 " Captain," she called pityingly. 
 
 She took a step toward him. Without turn- 
 ing * * The Shadow ' ' raised a staying hand. 
 
 Eowgowskii turned from Emily at her call 
 to meet again the merciless gaze of Lavelle. 
 
 " Pray," said Lavelle, moving toward him. 
 
 The light of all reason went out of the doomed 
 man's face. A maniacal cry burst from him. 
 He leaped to his feet. Lavelle sprang at him. 
 With a speed of a hawk's swoop the Russian 
 turned and fled to the cliff. A second he hesi- 
 tated on the brink and then plunged over it' 
 headlong. 
 
 A moment of silence, then a splash and a lin- 
 gering cry echoed up the face of the cliff. The 
 gold woman's tortured nerves relaxed. Sense- 
 less she dropped where she stood. 
 
 112
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WITH the Russian's wild death cry still echo- 
 ing in her senses Emily awoke a half -hour later 
 to a vivid consciousness. She found herself 
 lying in the protecting shade of the boat sail 
 tent which Lavelle had erected for her habita- 
 tion near the eastern side of the hill on the day 
 after the landing. The scene upon which her 
 eyes had closed flashed again across her vision 
 and she sat up with a shudder. 
 
 The movement brought to her senses for the 
 first time a realization of physical pain. Re- 
 membering the strength of spirit which had 
 been given to her to stand upon fire she throttled 
 the cry which sprang to her lips. Her suffering 
 became precious to her even as the agony of 
 travail is dear to a woman. Her eyes welled 
 with hot tears. 
 
 Putting out a hand blindly she found the little 
 canvas sandals. She picked them up and 
 pressed them to her bosom. The charred heels 
 and soles crumbled away at her touch. She 
 kissed them with the impulse which would carry 
 a warrior's lips to his colors. To her these 
 pieces of canvas were the symbols of a faith 
 
 113
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 which had sustained her in a trial which passed 
 her understanding. 
 
 Looking downward at her feet, she found 
 both of them bandaged. She had been dimly 
 conscious of Lavelle doing this service for her. 
 She recognized the bindings as pieces of the 
 hem of her night robe with which she had bound 
 his brow in the boat. A mysterious thrill went 
 through her; her eyes overflowed. 
 
 The breeze lifted the edge of the tent and dis- 
 closed Lavelle to her view. She caught the 
 canvas and held it back. He was just finishing 
 the restepping of the signal mast. His back 
 was toward her. 
 
 Straightening from his task to his full height 
 and with one of his strong bare arms extended 
 to the mast and the other hanging loosely at 
 his side, he looked out over the sea to the south- 
 ward. His tattered shirt and trousers still wet 
 with sea water clung tightly to his lithe, power- 
 ful form. There was a challenge in the set of 
 his head and in the grim line of his jaw. His 
 attitude breathed of a man indomitable one 
 who, indeed, was master of his fate; the in- 
 trepid captain of his soul. His destiny would 
 find him thus. 
 
 The woman in the tent watched this man in 
 wondrous awe, nor could she know that his 
 114
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 thoughts were alone of her at that moment of 
 a woman sanctified in his sight not alone by 
 living fire, but also by the passion of a love 
 unutterable. She saw the breeze toss the fore- 
 lock of his dark brown hair. He started. She 
 dropped the edge of the tent, realizing, without 
 any amazement, that they two were alone in 
 an empty, far-flung waste of the world. She laid 
 her head down on her long coat which he had 
 rolled into a pillow. She dared not speak. 
 
 During what seemed an interminable time, 
 the woman in the tent heard Lavelle moving 
 about outside, and, of a sudden, the singleness 
 of his footfall brought Chang surging into her 
 thoughts. A moment later Lavelle stood in the 
 tent entrance, carrying food and drink. She sat 
 up to behold in his face an expression which 
 stabbed her with its pain. 
 
 " You are suffering, little woman," he said 
 tenderly. 
 
 All she could do was shake her head that she 
 was not. Discovering what it was she was hold- 
 ing tightly to her bosom he turned away. He 
 understood. 
 
 Presently he pressed her to eat the meal he 
 had prepared. Although it nearly choked her 
 to swallow she ate and drank because he wished 
 her to do so. 
 
 115
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " What of Chang? Has he gone gone 
 away? " she dared to ask finally. 
 
 The man sitting in the tent entrance had his 
 gaze fixed far away upon the relentless ocean's 
 breast. He nodded his head sadly. 
 
 " God's benison be with him the truest, the 
 best friend it has ever been given to any man 
 to know," Lavelle said, facing Emily. After 
 a second's pause he went on in a tense voice: 
 
 " This treacherous earth treacherous with 
 the sea's treachery opened at our feet down 
 there like the snapping jaws of a monster. 
 Chang went first. I put out a hand to save him. 
 The jaws got me. 
 
 " It seemed very hard that the end should 
 come like that without even a moment to say 
 good-by." Lavelle paused again. " You can 
 have no idea," he resumed, " what a torment 
 of waters is down there waters filled with 
 reeds and roots which catch at one's limba and 
 cling to them like serpents. 
 
 " As we came up to to snatch at the crust of 
 shore it crumbled at our touch. I could see the 
 hill. You you had just turned away. As I 
 looked your head passed out of my sight. Then, 
 we saw that that fiend climb up here. We saw 
 him stop and and look back. I shouted that 
 is, I tried to shout, but I had no breath. I never 
 116
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 was so weak in all all my days. But whether 
 he heard me or didn't he must have seen what 
 had happened to us. He would never have 
 dared come near you if he hadn't. 
 
 ' ' The earth broke under our hands again and 
 again. The sea tore at us. There is a tre- 
 mendous current under this island. I heard you 
 cry for for us to come to you. Chang heard 
 you. But we were caught struggling like two 
 foolish animals in a trap. When the signal staff 
 
 went down Why, I think I could not 
 
 think. We saw you come to the edge of the hill 
 there heard you cry again, but the sea " 
 
 Lavelle became silent. His eyes sought the 
 great blue deeps below. Emily could not speak. 
 Her soul was crying to comfort this man. The 
 yearning of an unknown motherhood was in her 
 heart. 
 
 "Like most sailor men deep-water 
 
 men " he went on, " Chang could not swim. 
 
 I imagine he must have found a foothold in one 
 of the roots in the water. He caught me- 
 suddenly lifted me bodily, it seemed, up out 
 of the sea on to the shore. He was very pow- 
 erful. I turned to help him. All was quiet up 
 here. He shook his head and and let go. 
 
 " ' Go, master. Quick go! Good-by, flen'. 
 Good-by flor you ! ' 
 
 117
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " A second only he floated. Then the sea 
 sucked him down. He went with a smile un- 
 afraid. And I came to to you on the hill. 
 You don't " 
 
 His voice broke. He leaped to his feet and 
 walked away. It is not a good thing that a 
 man's tears shall be seen by a strange woman. 
 
 118
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 WITH the going down of that day's sun a 
 long, heavy swell, accompanied by the lightest 
 of breezes, set in from the southwest. It was 
 an ominous sign to Lavelle, nor could he con- 
 ceal this thought when he carried Emily's even- 
 ing meal to her. She asked him to bring his 
 food and eat it in the tent entrance. 
 
 The castaways ate their pitiable rations in 
 silence, but before this short time passed the 
 island was moving in concert with the heave 
 of the sea. 
 
 A shocking, sense-stunning crash where a 
 part of the western cliff slithered down into the 
 deep sounded the end of the meal. While the 
 roar was dying away the eyes of the man and 
 woman met and held in a glance of under- 
 standing. 
 
 " This is is the end! " Emily asked in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " I think it is not very far off, little 
 woman," he answered. He told her this truth 
 because he knew hers was a spirit unafraid. 
 By it she knew that he knew and understood 
 many things which words might not encompass. 
 
 119
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I thank you so much," was her answer. 
 She spoke with a frank gladness. But the 
 slightest quaver was in her voice. 
 
 Lavelle left her to build up the signal fire. 
 He felt certain that it was for the last time. It 
 was to him the funeral pyre of a hope which 
 died by the minute, and he laid on the fuel with 
 unsparing hand. Some night-borne craft might 
 by miracle see its gleam, yet the light of a moon 
 in all the splendor of fullness lessened this re- 
 motest of possibilities to the barest minimum. 
 
 Although Lavelle was gone from the tent but 
 a little while, it seemed an eternal time to the 
 woman, who waited for his return. And when 
 he came her eyes were dry; and she held out 
 a hand for him to help her to her feet. 
 
 " I have no pain/' she said, answering his 
 protest. " I speak the truth. I wish to be out 
 in the night with you." 
 
 After the first step or two Emily walked 
 freely and, indeed, the pain of her burns had 
 passed away. The while Lavelle knelt to make 
 a seat for her she stood sweeping the heavens 
 with her luminous eyes. Across the northern 
 sky a large star, falling, burst upon her vision. 
 
 1 ' See ! ' ' she exclaimed, and then, turning to- 
 ward him, she repeated Calpurnia's words to 
 CaBsar : 
 120
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " ' When beggars die there are no comets seen ; 
 
 The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes !'" 
 
 It was a night made for life and love and the 
 joys of living not death; a night to set the 
 soul singing in gladness of being. It seemed to 
 have garnered the uttermost spaces of their 
 brightest jewels to bedeck its violet cope and 
 make it the harder for this man and woman to 
 say farewell to mortality. 
 
 Save in the intervals when Paul went to re- 
 plenish the fire he sat at Emily's side, and to- 
 gether they watched and listened to the majestic 
 travailing of the weariless, pitiless deep. 
 
 It was not far from midnight when the sea 
 tore away half of the meadow and the palm 
 tree. This bit of earth floated in their sight 
 for but a breath. It was; then it was not. 
 Where it had been was a patch of leaping, roil- 
 ing waters, white-fanged like wolves at a kill. 
 
 Emily put out a hand and took one of Paul's. 
 
 ' ' The end it will come like that quickly, ' ' 
 she whispered. * ' I will will not be afraid I 
 am sure if you will let me hold your hand. ' ' 
 
 Paul Lavelle could make no answer save 
 pressing the gentle hand in both of his. It was 
 sufficient to comfort her. After a long silence 
 she asked: 
 
 " Why are you not afraid? " 
 
 121
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I don't know," he answered simply, " un- 
 less it is because I can't believe that a mar- 
 velous creation like mankind stops with what 
 we call death. I can't believe that wondrous 
 beings like you and Chang, capable of the 
 sublimest thoughts and impulses come and go 
 and are no more. Rather I think that what we 
 are facing is * Yet a little sleep, a little slum- 
 ber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.' ; 
 
 Nor was Emily conscious of her hand clasp- 
 ing Paul Lavelle's with love's tightness in its 
 pressure. 
 
 " My father believed as you," she began, 
 only to stop short as she felt him start. She 
 had ever been on her guard against speaking 
 of her people to this man, for she knew his 
 sensitiveness as to the past. But once had she 
 made reference to the tragedy which embraced 
 her life and his. That was in the boat when 
 she had assailed him to save Rowgowskii from 
 drowning. Now she knew not what else to 
 say. 
 
 " Miss Granville," he said presently. 
 
 " No, no, please don't! ' she protested. 
 " Not that tone; not that distance. Call me 
 friend, comrade just as you have been doing 
 these past few days. Call me Emily. It would 
 please r^e; it would sound like home to to 
 122
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 hear somebody call me by the old name once 
 more." 
 
 " Emily," Lavelle went on, " I should like 
 you to know what happened that night on the 
 Yakutat the truth. If you " 
 
 . . 
 
 No," she interrupted him. " If I say to 
 you that that I do not wish you to tell me, you 
 will not misunderstand? " 
 
 " As you wish," he answered, but there was 
 a chill in his voice. 
 
 " No, no! " she cried. " You do not have 
 to tell me what happened. Don't you under- 
 stand! I know. I know you to be brave and 
 true and upstanding. I know you acted as only 
 one unafraid fearless as you are, could have 
 acted. And I thank God that he has given it 
 to me to know you and to understand ! ' : 
 
 Her voice broke. Her eyes, swimming with 
 tears, saw him turn toward the fire. A weight 
 seemed lifted from him. She sensed the com- 
 ing of a great peace to his soul. 
 
 123 
 
 CD
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A HIGH dawn one presaging storm found 
 the castaways standing beside the signal fire 
 which swiftly smoldered into the ashes of hope- 
 lessness. The swell had increased during the 
 morning hours. The hill now afforded a foot- 
 ing unsteadier than a laboring ship's deck. The 
 breeze of the night continued light and steady. 
 
 With the first glimmer of day Lavelle went 
 searching the sea. His gaze swung the horizon 
 again and again, following the withdrawing 
 mantle of night only to confront the old bitter 
 emptiness of all the days that had gone before. 
 
 Lavelle 's eyes kept seeking the distance, but 
 Emily's, untrained, sought the sea at hand. So 
 it was that her sight was the first to discover 
 a sail barely two miles away to the south and 
 west. 
 
 At the discovery her throat closed. She could 
 not speak. She stood breathless, half in trance. 
 Lavelle, turned to the eastward, felt her clutch 
 his arm. He sent a glance whither she dumbly 
 pointed. 
 
 " A sail !" he cried. "Saved! This means 
 life, you brave, brave soul ! ' ' 
 124
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 He seized her by the arms and shook her as 
 a boy meeting a boy playmate might have done. 
 Her whole being thrilled at his touch. A glori- 
 ous light of love came into her countenance, but 
 he saw it not. 
 
 As he spoke to her he dropped her arms and 
 his glance sprang away to find the sail again. 
 Fixing it, Lavelle could not control his amaze- 
 ment. Emily saw a great seriousness succeed 
 the expression of delight in his face and manner. 
 A chill touched her new-born hope. 
 
 " What do you see, captain? "What is it! " 
 
 " I don't know what to tell you. I am not 
 sure yet. Still there is something strange " 
 
 " Why, that ship It is moving side- 
 ways! " she cried. " It is not sailing! " 
 
 Lavelle, indeed, was puzzled. The strange 
 sail was an iron or steel bark of perhaps twelve 
 hundred tons, hove to on the port tack. Her 
 f orecourse and f oretopsails were set. The f ore- 
 topgallantsail hung in its clewlines and bunt- 
 lines. The maintopgallantsail and topsails were 
 set and laid full aback against the mast. The 
 main course was clewed up. The peak of the 
 spanker had been let go and the gaff was flailing 
 from side to side. She carried two skysails. 
 These and the royals were furled. All of the 
 headsails, with the exception of the foretop- 
 
 125
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 mast-staysail, were down and trailing away 
 from the bowsprit and jibboom. None of the 
 other staysails was set. She was laden and 
 laboring hard. It seemed that the swell must 
 roll the sticks out of her. 
 
 From the height at which they stood Lavelle 
 and Emily could see her lie down with every 
 heave of the sea and put her lee rail under. 
 
 Now, for' a second, rolling deeper than she 
 had before, Lavelle, from a new angle, confirmed 
 what he had suspected from the beginning. 
 Her wheel was deserted ! Her decks were life- 
 less ! She was in charge of herself ! 
 
 The bark was rapidly drifting closer. An- 
 other fifteen minutes, Lavelle figured, would 
 carry her by the island half a mile to the south- 
 ward. It was a moment for quick decision. 
 Emily read his purpose to swim to the bark. 
 
 " God alone knows, Emily, what mystery 
 confronts us. But our only chance of life lies 
 out there. It may be another trap, comrade, 
 but we must hope.- I feel that, for your sake, 
 I must " 
 
 11 For our sakes," she interrupted him, but 
 he did not seem to hear her. He was bending 
 over, removing his shoes. 
 
 " I'll win back to you I'll come for you if 
 
 it be in " 
 
 126
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " It will not be in death, but in life.'' 
 
 Startled, eagerly he beheld the love-light in 
 her eyes, only to turn quickly away. His heart 
 throbbed as if it must burst. His tortured soul 
 moaned in its yearning and passion to crush 
 her to his breast. In the face of death he would 
 have claimed her at this sign ; gone out with his 
 lips pressed to hers. In the face of life the 
 promise of living which the bark held forth 
 he, the pariah, said no to his desire. 
 
 His face was masked and cold as he turned 
 toward her again, and the gold woman bent her 
 head for shame. He broke out the boat mast 
 and, carrying it over his shoulder, he held out 
 his hand and led her swiftly down the hill. His 
 hand was very cold. He set her a lookout point 
 at the foot of the hill. 
 
 " Wait here," he said in a voice which 
 sounded unlike him. " At no second lose sight 
 of the bark. Be on your guard. If anything 
 should happen to the island cling to this mast. 
 It will keep you up. I'll come for you I'll 
 pick you up. ' ' 
 
 His gray eyes were glistening with sup- 
 pressed emotion. 
 
 " And if if," she said, " this should be 
 
 good-by and we should not meet again " 
 
 127
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 She drew his head down and kissed him full 
 upon the lips. 
 
 Without a word he ran across the meadow 
 to the sea. 
 
 Emily watched him as he dropped off the 
 swaying land and struck out powerfully toward 
 the bark now head on to the southern shore. 
 For a moment her heart grew still with mis- 
 giving. Then, it thrilled with a joyous impulse. 
 She hurried across the meadow. As she went 
 she removed her long cloak and the golfing 
 jacket. At the shore she stopped and tore the 
 bandages from her feet. Looking seaward she 
 saw where Lavelle swam. Dropping her skirt 
 quickly she stood for a second in the long white 
 night robe in which she had escaped the Cam- 
 bodia. Inhaling a long, deep breath she plunged 
 overboard fearlessly. 
 
 Lavelle, looking backward, missed Emily. 
 His spirit slumped. He paused his stroke, fear- 
 ful for her safety. 
 
 The sun at that moment burnished the crest 
 of a wave behind him. A white arm clove its 
 mane of foam and his heart leaped to behold the 
 gold woman following in his wake. 
 
 128
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 THE sight of this woman following after him 
 held Paul Lavelle bound for the moment in the 
 inertia of awe. All sense of their common and 
 great peril left him. Wonder robbed him of 
 the power of thinking just as it had on the 
 island when she had drawn his head to her and 
 pressed her lips upon his. He comprehended 
 the thing by instinct alone. 
 
 With the powerful, sweeping overhead stroke 
 of a practiced swimmer Emily overtook him on 
 the crest of a foaming surge. The plaits of her 
 hair had been washed by the sea into a free 
 golden mane. The grace of a Nereid, of the 
 ocean itself, was in her. She might have been 
 borne of the deep. The myth of Thetis must 
 have had such a conception. 
 
 As she swung up to him, shoulder to shoulder, 
 Lavelle turned on his side. With a toss of her 
 head she brought it clear of the water. The 
 light of her countenance said to him as plainly 
 as words could have done : ' ' I am here ! I am 
 thine ! ' ' He caught her and drew her face to 
 his. His lips went to hers and clung in a wild, 
 
 129
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 fleeting second of union. Then, side by side, 
 they struck out to meet their destiny. 
 
 Taking the weather berth, Paul set the pace 
 toward the strange vessel. It was already to 
 leeward of the island's median line. The send 
 of the swell, however, more than balanced the 
 craft's swift drift in the swimmers' favor. Yet 
 the half-mile of their turbulent course was a 
 test for the strongest and bravest. The willful, 
 tenacious power of love sustained Emily until' 
 they came within hail of their goal. Here flesh 
 and blood struck. Her spirit remained un- 
 daunted, but the body refused the spirit's de- 
 mands upon it. 
 
 Sensing that Emily was failing, Lavelle put 
 out a hand and turned her on her back. In that 
 moment he realized, too, that he was near ex- 
 haustion. The ridge of a gigantic surge lifted 
 them higher than the rail of the bark. Paul 
 could distinguish every fixture of her deserted 
 decks. The sea dropped away with them. The 
 next instant the vessel's leaden-colored side and 
 half of her copper-painted bottom were reeling 
 over them. They might have been looking up 
 at her from the bottom of the ocean. Her masts 
 appeared to pierce the blue, sun- shot sky. 
 
 Although convinced there was no ear aboard 
 the vessel to hear Paul drew on his rapidly 
 130
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 waning strength to send a yell down to her. 
 The sails flung back a faint, mocking echo. All 
 the while his eyes were searching for some 
 means of boarding. Being an iron vessel the 
 bark's sides presented no chain plates or chan- 
 nels for a hand hold. Deeply laden though she 
 was the bights in which her braces trailed were 
 far beyond his reach even when she rolled. 
 
 The belief that he might be able to climb 
 aboard with the aid of a lee brace had been 
 with him when he took to the water. From the 
 island it had seemed that this gear swept the sea 
 with every surge. Not so much as an eyebolt 
 offered a ray of hope. The boomkins were as 
 possible of touching as the tops. He turned 
 toward the bows. There might be a chance for- 
 ward, but he felt certain that Emily's strength 
 would never withstand the mauling of the sea 
 that must follow catching hold of the bobstay. 
 
 Lost for a moment in the eagerness of his 
 search, the bark had drifted down upon them 
 until a stroke would have brought them to- 
 gether. The sensation of being drawn down 
 made him aware of it. It shocked him into 
 action. Dragging Emily with him, Paul 
 plunged away just in time to escape a terrific 
 suction produced by the vessel's laboring. 
 
 Hardly were they clear of this new peril, 
 
 131
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 which he instantly realized must be taken into 
 account, when something wound itself around 
 Paul's legs with a jerk. It clung like the ten- 
 tacle of a monster. It snatched him toward the 
 vessel. The bark was lifting at the moment. 
 He and Emily were falling away in a valley of 
 beryl. Instinctively he threw himself on his 
 back, kicking as best he could to free his pris- 
 oned limbs. A glance, as his feet came clear 
 of the water, transported him from the depths 
 of fear and hopelessness to the heights of hope. 
 He was entangled in a rope's end which was 
 attached to the bark. He caught it just as it 
 was slipping away from him. Overhauling it 
 with one hand he found it to be a gauntline 
 which trailed away from a block at the end of 
 the lee main yardarm. To his sailor mind it 
 told how the vessel's small boats had been 
 hoisted out of her. 
 
 It was with misgiving that he drew the line 
 toward him. It came so freely that he was cer- 
 tain that it was but another mockery. At each 
 pull he expected to see its length come darting 
 through the block. Presently it held; it sus- 
 tained his weight. It was fast aboard the vessel. 
 His heart bounded at the discovery. He passed 
 a bight round Emily's waist and darted from 
 her side forward. Hurling himself into the 
 132
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 smothering suction under the bows, he clutched 
 the bobstay as it buried itself. Down he went 
 with it, dragged further and further until it 
 seemed that he must let the sea have him. A 
 monster with an hundred beaks tore at his lungs. 
 Another clawed at his eyes. Still another 
 gnashed at his heart. A bare glimmer of < con- 
 sciousness marked the end of the downward 
 pitch. As the bark rose he continued to climb. 
 At the end of the rise he was clear of the sea 
 and halfway to the cap of the bowsprit. The 
 fangs which reached for him did not get him 
 again. 
 
 Half an hour afterward Paul Lavelle found 
 himself lying on a deck with water hissing over 
 him and round him. It gurgled in his ears and 
 foamed across his throat. It was being spat at 
 him out of three or four scuppers and a bulwark 
 port on his right. He was in the waist of a 
 vessel. This was a hatch coaming against 
 which his left side was pressed the coaming 
 of the vessel's main hatch. He sat up and saw 
 Emily lying across the hatch unconscious. The 
 bight of the gauntline was still around her. As 
 he struggled to arise, only to fall back again, 
 his cheek swept one of her feet which dangled 
 over the edge of the coaming. Yes, he had torn 
 that woman out of the sea's arms. There she
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 was in evidence of that, but where lie had found 
 the strength, how he had done it or when he had 
 done it, he had no idea. 
 
 The names Emily and Daphne were mixed in 
 his thoughts. It took a severe mental struggle 
 to identify his own name. He repeated it two 
 or three times before he recognized it. Emily 
 was the name of the woman on the hatch. But 
 Daphne? This name puzzled him until his wan- 
 dering gaze found a row of deck buckets in a 
 rack on- the edge of the forward house. Daphne 
 was painted on each bucket. Then slowly it 
 came to him that he had seen it on the bows of 
 a vessel aboard which he had climbed a long 
 time before. 
 
 His senses were bogged in the reaction of the 
 despair of exhaustion that hopeless dejection 
 which follows a supreme mental or physical ex- 
 ertion and whose poignancy is the greater ac- 
 cording to the successful degree of the effort. 
 He slipped back to his full length in the water 
 and lay staring up at the sky. 
 
 "Paul! Paul!" 
 
 His name called in a plaintive tone over his 
 head was what finally aroused him to a realiza- 
 tion of his situation. The voice touched a chord 
 in his being that impelled him to action. It sent 
 a wave of emotion through him. He rose to a 
 134
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 sitting posture. Again his cheek brushed the 
 gold woman's feet, and at the touch he bent his 
 head quickly and kissed them. It was not the 
 first time he had done this, 'but it startled him 
 now, for he sensed that she was conscious of 
 what he did. Yet thus on the island he had 
 kissed her reverently and sacredly when he had 
 bound her burns. 
 
 As he struggled to his feet Emily sat up. Her 
 hair fell across her shoulders and bosom and 
 across her limbs in a golden shower. ' 
 
 " Oh, woman of all the world," he mur- 
 mured, ' ' we still live ! ' 
 
 This woman was his. She had challenged 
 him against the sea matched him against all 
 its brute force and he had won her. 
 
 For a second only Emily met and held Paul's 
 glance. Then, lowering her head and throwing 
 herself in abandon across the hatch, she burst 
 into tears. So did the reaction of all she had 
 passed through come upon her. 
 
 Paul turned away, chastened by those tears. 
 He realized that no word he might = utter then 
 would assuage one drop of them. Action called 
 to him, but he seemed to be unable to put a hand 
 on -the situation. A long weather roll caught 
 him unawares. It flung him across the deck and 
 he brought up against the fife rail around the 
 
 135
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 mainmast. His limbs quivered under Mm; his 
 knees knocked together in weakness. Every 
 muscle of him throbbed and twitched from the 
 effects of the battle he had waged with the sen. 
 A momentary dread that he would never re- 
 cover his strength seized him. 
 
 It was in that instant that his gaze snapped 
 a glimpse of the island far up to windward. It 
 appeared very small. He marveled that the 
 bark could have drifted so far. A lee roll cut 
 the bit of land from his view. He started to 
 call, Emily, but forbore at the sound of her sob- 
 bing. As if fascinated he waited until the bark 
 lifted on the shoulder of the next swell. Like 
 sugar melting in a teacup the island t dissolved 
 in his sight. It stirred him mightily. It 
 aroused in him the spirit of combativeness. It 
 made him realize that the sea would stand not 
 on his dalliance. It ordered him to action and to 
 confront the mystery of the ocean's traffic with 
 the abandoned Daphne. 
 
 It required but a glance for him to confirm 
 his estimate of the vessel's size which he had 
 formed in his first view of her from the island 
 and while he swam beside her. She was not 
 less than 1,200 tons burden about 200 feet long 
 and less than forty feet beam and heavily 
 sparred. Her lower masts and topmasts were 
 136
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of iron or steel. They were pole masts ; that is 
 to say, in one continuous piece. The lower and 
 double topsail-yards also were built of iron or 
 steel. Everything bespoke the fact that she had 
 been built for driving. 
 
 Calling to Emily that he would be gone but a 
 minute, Paul drew an iron belaying pin from 
 the fife rail and started aft. He armed himself 
 against surprise, although he felt instinctively 
 that he and Emily were alone. Still, all to be 
 seen about decks indicated that the bark had 
 not been long abandoned. 
 
 A teakwood door was open and hooked back 
 against the cabin's forward bulkhead. A sim- 
 ilar door on the starboard side was shut. 
 Through the open door he entered the after- 
 living quarters. A slamming of doors and the 
 familiar sound of the hard woods in the cabin 's 
 trim, working in their joinings, answered the 
 invader's hail flung from the threshold. Once 
 inside, he found himself in a white-painted al- 
 leyway at the end of which a banging door gave 
 him a glimpse of the forward cabin or saloon. 
 His nostrils first caught a stench of lamps which 
 had flickered out in oil dregs. 
 
 All ships are so ordered in their appointments 
 that a seaman is never at a loss to find his way 
 in any. Lavelle could have gone about the 
 
 137
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Daphne blindfolded. He did not have to look 
 at the brass plate over the first door off the 
 alleyway on his right to tell it was the room of 
 the chief mate. The door was open, but some- 
 thing behind it kept it from swinging more than 
 a couple of inches as the vessel labored. He 
 gave it a quick shove and stepped inside the 
 room, only to pause with a gasp of horror. 
 
 At the invader's feet, bathed in the morning 
 sunlight which poured through two ports, lay 
 the stark body of a young, lithe-limbed son of 
 the sea. Barely more than a boy he had been. 
 There was a gaping bullet wound between his 
 eyes. It was a wound of exit where the lead 
 which had killed him had sped away from its 
 work. It cried out a story of assassination to 
 Lavelle ; it shrieked to him that the young fellow 
 had been shot from behind, possibly as he slept 
 in his berth with his back toward the door. The 
 rolling of the ship had brought the body to the 
 deck where it lay. 
 
 The lockers of the room were wrenched open. 
 Everywhere were signs of disorder; the 'marks 
 of hurrying, marauding hands. Yet the room 
 had been the castle of a man of order and 
 cleanliness. Lavelle looked particularly for the 
 bark's log book which ordinarily should have 
 138
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 bieen on the small desk at the foot of the berth. 
 It was missing. 
 
 With a thought of how sweet life must have 
 been to this young fellow and with his wrath 
 hot against his slayers, Lavelle stepped across 
 the alleyway to the second and third mates' 
 room. Its door opened at a touch. Here, 
 strangely, the sour, unmistakable odor of the 
 forecastle 'met him. Instantly the searcher 
 visualized the coarse type of men who had occu- 
 pied these quarters the rule-of-thumb sort, who 
 may spend a lifetime at sea without ever win- 
 ning to a rank above second mate. Here dis- 
 order was not apparent because disorder was a 
 natural thing. 
 
 There was a stateroom abaft the mate's. It 
 was empty. A door immediately opposite had 
 been forced. It was another stateroom filled 
 with stores. It was plain that a quick draft 
 had been made upon these supplies. 
 
 Darting into the forward cabin, only the echo 
 of his own hail answered him. A red table- 
 cloth lay on the deck where it had been swept by 
 some person hurrying by or < else in a struggle. 
 A white metal castor rolled under the dining 
 table and made a tinkling noise ' among its 
 broken cruets. The pantry and three more 
 staterooms opened upon this cabin. The state-
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 rooms reported only emptiness. They bad not 
 been recently -occupied. The pantry's cleanli- 
 ness and order might have been produced by a 
 careful housewife's hands. 
 
 The doors leading into the after cabin were 
 open and hooked back. Like the forward com- 
 partment, it was done in Indian teak, bird's- 
 eye maple, and mahogany. It was furnished 
 with two comfortable easy chairs, a small center 
 table, and a divan built into the bulkhead 
 against the starboard side. A tiny piano stood 
 between the forward entrances. Through the 
 after end a companionway:led up on to the poop. 
 
 There were two more staterooms here. They 
 were empty and gave no signs of recent occu- 
 pancy. They were on the port side. To star- 
 board was the chart room. A litter of books, 
 charts, and chart pipes covered its floor. The 
 chronometer case stood open. A glance told 
 Paul that it had been wound within forty-eight 
 hours. He bent his head and quickly caught a 
 tick of even, smooth escapement. 
 
 Hurrying aft from the chart room, the cast- 
 away came to what he knew to be the skipper's 
 room. The door to it was shut. Its middle 
 panel was splintered. Something made him 
 turn the knob with gentleness. 
 
 Just inside the door to the left a man in 
 140
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 pajamas sat at a small writing desk, his bead 
 cast upon his arms as if sleep ;had suddenly 
 overtaken him. His head swayed as Paul looked 
 down at him. It was lending itself to the swing 
 of the vessel, but the motion was so natural that, 
 for the moment, Lavelle was deceived. A 
 strange hope sprang into his heart. 
 
 " Wake up, old man! Wake up! " he called. 
 He even shook him by the shoulder, but the man 
 at the desk was sleeping a sleep that knows no 
 mortal awakening. i 
 
 Under the stiff arms Paul spied the log book 
 which he had missed from the mate's room. He 
 pulled it out and ;the dead man's head rolled 
 back and compelled his disturber to meet the 
 gaze of his wide-open, staring blue eyes. A pen 
 rolled out from under his right hand and 
 dropped from the desk. 
 
 This undoubtedly was the Daphne's skipper. 
 He had been a man of powerful build, standing 
 in life as tall as Lavelle himself. Even in the 
 laxness of death his jaw bespoke indomitable de- 
 termination. The nose was of a splendid ag- 
 gressive type. Death had taken him in the be- 
 ginning of his best years. He could not have 
 been more than forty years of age. 
 
 A crimson splotch just below the chest line 
 told where the man's life blood had gone out. 
 
 141
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Measuring its location by sight with the height 
 of the door's splintered panel, Lavelle ventured 
 a deduction of how the Daphne's master and 
 mate had been assassinated. The master had 
 been asleep or, at any rate, he had retired. His 
 apparel, his disturbed berth told that. He had 
 heard the shot which did for the mate, or, per- 
 haps, he might have gone to the door unsus- 
 pectingly to answer a knock or summons. His 
 hand turning the knob had been the signal to 
 the assassin on the other side of the door to 
 send a bullet crashing through it into his 
 midriff. 
 
 But how the skipper had come to have the 
 log book in his room it was not possible to sur- 
 mise unless, after being shot, he had had the 
 strength to make his way to the mate's room 
 and back again. Again he might have taken 
 the keeping of the log into his own charge. 
 Could he and the mate have quarreled? Asking 
 himself this question, the searcher's eyes ran 
 down the pages at which the book had lain open 
 and stopped with a shock at three words : 
 " The second mate- 
 That was the final entry. 
 It was written in a hand which had begun the 
 formation of the letters in a tight style and 
 ended in the scrawling of a schoolboy, a blot 
 142
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 and a splattered dash. Where this dash 
 finished there had death touched the fingers 
 which held the writer's pen. 
 
 Whatever had happened aboard the Daphne 
 it was the second mate who was responsible for 
 it. Paul was convinced there was no escape 
 from the indictment in those three words. 
 
 It was a P.M. entry under date of March 29. 
 According to Paul Lavelle's account of time it 
 was now March 31. Some time during the night 
 of two days before on the 29th mutiny had 
 lifted its red hands on the Daphne. 
 
 The log was written up to eight o'clock on 
 the evening of the 29th. It must have been 
 the last thing the fair-haired boy now lying cold 
 forward had done before turning his lamp down 
 for his eternal " watch below." 
 
 But as startling as was the tragedy which 
 loomed so boldly out of the three simple words 
 which have been quoted was the Daphne's posi- 
 tion given as of noon of that day : * * Latitude 
 32: 30 north; Longitude 176: 28 east." 
 
 This instantly destroyed Paul's idea of the 
 island's position. The bark had drifted up on 
 the island out of the southwest. Then, accord- 
 ing to the most reasonable assumption, she had 
 been to the southward of it when she was aban- 
 doned. That put the island between three and 
 
 142
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 four hundred miles to the northward of where 
 the castaways had believed it to be all the time. 
 Its drift must have been to the north and east 
 instead of the southwest. This explained the 
 absence of the trades; the variable quality of 
 the winds which had prevailed. The island had 
 drifted across the spot, or within a short dis- 
 tance thereto, of where the Cambodia had found 
 her grave. 
 
 Paul decided to let the observation which he 
 planned to make at noon settle the puzzle of 
 position. The moment demanded that he should 
 give his thoughts to it and the living, and not 
 to the past and its dead. Still as he laid the log 
 down on the desk again he turned to the page 
 which began it and read, in the style of the 
 ancient sea formula : 
 
 ' ' Log of the bark Daphne, 1,252 tons burthen, 
 of Liverpool, England, John McGavock, master, 
 on her voyage from Sydney, N. S. W., toward 
 San Francisco, U. S. A." 
 
 And with something of boyish pricle the 
 keeper of the log it was not in the skipper's 
 writing had posted his name with boldness at 
 the head of the list of the ship's company: 
 " William Elston, chief officer." It was the im- 
 agination of youth gilding the rank. It seemed 
 144
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 to speak that the Daphne had given the boy his 
 first berth as mate. 
 
 " And they murdered you, William Elston, 
 and you, too, John McGavock," said Paul with 
 a sad bitterness, turning away from the 
 desk. 
 
 A frightened cry from Emily, a smothered 
 sob and the patter of her bare feet carried Paul 
 through the open door, but not quickly enough 
 to cut off her view of the still occupant of 
 the skipper's room. She shrank into his 
 arms shuddering, and as he pressed her to 
 him she tried to crush her sobs against his 
 breast. 
 
 " Don't be frightened don't be frightened, 
 dearheart," he crooned to her. His lips found 
 her brow, her eyes, her mouth. 
 
 ' * I I Oh, Paul, I thought you had gone 
 away," she sobbed. " You were were so 
 long." 
 
 Paul had not been away from the deck more 
 than five minutes, but the time had seemed to 
 her thrice and thrice again as long. 
 
 Brokenly she told him how, as she had en- 
 tered the door through which she had seen him 
 disappear, her eyes had found the figure of the 
 mate stretched in his room. 
 
 " Then there is another one in there! " 
 
 145 
 4
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 she went on. " Oh, Paul, never leave me again ! 
 Will you, dear? Will you? Not until death 
 comes to take us both? ' 
 
 Her teeth were chattering from cold and 
 nervous exhaustion. 
 
 " No, dear; not until death," he answered her 
 pleading, but the kiss which he pressed on her 
 mouth spoke in greater reassurance to her heart 
 than his words. " Much has happened here- 
 much that I don't understand; much that we 
 may never understand. But just now we must 
 think of ourselves. We must think of living; 
 of fighting on. You're going to fight on with 
 me, aren't you! You're going to be brave and 
 never lose hope? You don't know how brave 
 you've been. You have been the inspiration of 
 the battle all along. Look up at me." 
 
 His powerful arms held her away as he spoke 
 and she glanced up at him timidly. 
 
 " It is not hard to be brave with you," sh* 
 said, and he drew her to him so fiercely that she 
 could not help crying out. 
 
 He released her in alarm. His arms dropped 
 to his sides. 
 
 " I'm a brute; I've hurt you, dear." 
 
 " No, no," she protested with a smile of lore, 
 but her eyes sought a red mark on her round, 
 gleaming shoulder, and for the first time eack 
 146
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of them became conscious of the meagerness of 
 her attire. 
 
 " Did I bruise you that way? " 
 
 * ' No, no, Paul. It happened when you were 
 dragging me over the side. The rope did it." 
 
 As she spoke she drew the yoke of her long 
 white gown higher on her shoulders. Her 
 cheeks mantled red with shame and he turned 
 away from her. Yet in the next instant her 
 cheeks crimsoned a deeper hue in shame of that 
 shame, for it came to her as a truth that in the 
 sight of this man there could be no abasement. 
 
 Paul reentered the skipper's room, remember- 
 ing that he had seen an ulster and a mackintosh 
 hanging in a corner to the right of the desk. He 
 swept them on to his arm in his bewilderment. 
 It was one thing to outfit a man; another to 
 garb a woman. His eye caught a pair of socks 
 hanging over the edge of a half -open drawer 
 under McGavock's berth. He snatched these. 
 He added a pair of straw sandals, whose toes 
 protruded from under the settee across the rear 
 bulkhead, to his collection and also a blanket 
 a fine white California blanket which lay in a 
 roll at the foot of the berth. It was the best 
 he could think of doing at the moment. 
 
 Emily was shivering on the divan when he 
 returned to her. 
 
 147
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Lie down there, dear," lie said, " and I'll 
 tuck you in and bring you some coffee some- 
 thing warm, anyway and some food." 
 
 " No, no, no," she said, starting up. " Don't 
 leave me here alone. Not now. I know the 
 dead can't hurt one, but I must go with you. 
 When all's said and done, Paul I'm only- 
 only a woman " 
 
 She took the ulster from him and slipped it 
 on. It was large enough to have wrapped her 
 round twice. She plunged her feet into the 
 warm woollen socks and gave a little sigh of 
 pleasure. 
 
 " I I feel better already." 
 
 11 Now put these on." 
 
 Paul handed her the sandals, and as she took 
 them she studied them for a second, only to 
 glance up at him with a startled expression. 
 
 " These are a woman's, Paul," she whis- 
 pered. " And that- 
 
 She indicated the mackintosh, and he held it 
 out before him. 
 
 11 This is a woman's, too," he said in the same 
 breath with her. 
 
 " A woman! A woman? " he repeated, and 
 he wondered if here was the key of the mystery 
 of the Daphne. 
 
 148
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 TOGETHER the castaways went forward to the 
 galley, passing out of the cabin through the 
 starboard alleyway so that Emily might not see 
 again what was in the mate's room. As Paul 
 stepped out on deck he mentally marked the 
 time by the sun's ascension. It was not later 
 than 8:30 o'clock. 
 
 Signs of hurried departure met the eye on 
 every hand in the galley. Chief among them 
 was a batch of bread which had been put to 
 rising beside the range. But Paul did not pause 
 to make any examination until he had rattled 
 up a fire. He had picked up a box of matches 
 in McGavock's room. There was a bin of 
 kindling and plenty of coal in the scuttles, and 
 it took only a few minutes to get a meal to- 
 gether. It was the warmest and best breakfast 
 they had enjoyed since they had been cast away, 
 albeit the mainstay was a porridge of canned 
 corn which Paul had hit upon as the most prom- 
 ising thing in a quick search of the stores aft. 
 For the rest there was hard tack and marma- 
 lade and coffee. This coffee, a strong brew, 
 was really the crown of the breakfast. Its 
 
 149
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 yery odor was life-giving; strength-restoring. 
 
 Over the breakfast Paul related with all the 
 gentleness at his command the facts which had 
 been revealed by his search through the cabins. 
 There was little to add to what Emily had seen 
 herself. 
 
 ' * We are alone, Emily, ' ' he said, ' ' except for 
 those who will never wake again. ' ' 
 
 Fearful that similar heart-harrowing sights 
 might be held by the forward part of the vessel 
 as those which the sore-beset girl had discov- 
 ered aft he induced her to remain in the warmth 
 of the galley while he pressed his search in the 
 forecastle. 
 
 " Don't please don't stay long," she 
 pleaded. " I feel that that I will never be 
 able to bear it to have you go out of my sight 
 again." A shudder shook her. " When I saw 
 
 you a little while ago Oh, the ship fell 
 
 on you ! The bows came down and buried you 
 in the water " 
 
 " There, there, dear. Let us never think of 
 it again. I have only a glimmer of an idea of 
 what happened. I don 't know what happened ; 
 in fact, I don't want to know. All I do know 
 and all I care about is that somehow I had the 
 sand the brute strength to save you. Just you 
 of all the world! " 
 150
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 He seized her passionately as he spoke and 
 kissed her. The pressure of her firm, lithe body 
 against his sent his blood clamoring. The nat- 
 ural perfume of her hair made his brain hammer 
 drunkenly. Still above the tumult which beset 
 his senses rang a mocking laugh a devil's 
 laugh. As he caught it a chill went over him. 
 He put Emily away from him as fiercely as he 
 had taken her and, crying, without a word, she 
 sank on the bench in front of the fire and hid 
 her face in her hands. As he turned away his 
 brow was clouded with anger; his eyes filled 
 with bitterness. 
 
 A second Lavelle stood motionless, his trem- 
 bling breath an unuttered curse of himself. 
 Then he turned to the door at his side and 
 banged it open. It was the entrance to the 
 cook's cubby-hole of a room. A piece of mat- 
 ting and a wooden pillow in the bunk told that 
 its late occupant had been either a Chinese or 
 Japanese. There was an odor, too, that bespoke 
 the recent presence of an opium smoker. He 
 had departed in a hurry. 
 
 There was another door leading aft from the 
 galley. This was the entrance to the carpenter 
 shop and donkey engine room. A cubby-hole 
 with a bunk in it to port had been the car- 
 penter's abode. Lavelle noted with satisfaction 
 
 151
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the equipment of glistening, well-kept tools on 
 the engine room bulkheads. 
 
 Hurrying forward, Paul entered the fore- 
 castle. It was an exceptionally large one for a 
 vessel of the Daphne's size. Echo answered his 
 hail. Mattresses the straw pallets which sail- 
 ors call " donkeys' breakfasts " clothes' bags, 
 ditty bags, oilskins, sea boots, sou 'westers, an 
 assortment of greasy pots, pannikins, and 
 spoons, and two filthy kids littered the black 
 deck. Half a dozen chests gaped open, their 
 contents falling over their sides. The hands 
 that had gone through them h^d sought only 
 the bottoms where money, trinkets, and sup- 
 posed valuables had been hidden by their own- 
 ers. So had he found the chests in the rooms of 
 the second and third mates, the carpenter, and 
 the cook. In their extremity they had all acted 
 alike thought only of useless baubles and left 
 useful, necessary things behind. 
 
 A sailor before the mast, used and inured 
 to hardship, living by the hour hand in hand 
 with death, trained in the expectancy of sudden 
 danger, ever aware of the constant attendance 
 of peril, might be expected to act with more in- 
 telligence in an emergency which may cost him 
 his life than the humdrum-going citizen ashore. 
 Left to himself, he will go out of a ship in mid- 
 152
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ocean with a few shillings he has stored in the 
 bottom of his bag or chest, a model upon which 
 he has been spending most of his watches below, 
 a derby hat or flash necktie for which he paid 
 four times too much at his last port. Rarely has 
 he a thought of necessary things the countless 
 useful articles of clothing such as Paul Lavelle 
 saw on every hand overcoats, jackets, under- 
 clothing which a day or an hour in an open 
 boat can make worth a king's ransom. 
 
 The forecastle had been emptied in a hurry, 
 but it told no other tale than that. There is no 
 lair of mankind, no habitation of man's devise- 
 ment more cheerless than a ship's forecastle. 
 There is no sight more depressing, more dismal 
 than one deserted. 
 
 Paul, with a shudder, crossed from the star- 
 board side, through which he had entered, to 
 port. The breath of fresh air which he caught 
 as he threw back the door and stepped out on 
 deck was like a draught of wine. His spirits 
 lifted as it dissipated the sea-sour stench which 
 his nostrils were carrying. He turned forward 
 immediately to at last come upon an explana- 
 tion of the exodus from the Daphne. 
 
 The fore hatch was open. The covers were 
 strewn about the deck. Up out of the glisten- 
 ing cargo of coals came an odor of fire. There 
 
 153
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 was no smoke, but fire had been or was down 
 there. 
 
 He recognized the dangerous quality of the 
 coals at once. It was fear of it that had emptied 
 the crew overside in panic. His mind, in the 
 stress which had been upon it while he was aft, 
 had not grasped the probable character of the 
 cargo when he read in the log book with what 
 the Daphne was laden. 
 
 Dropping down through the hatchway his 
 bare feet felt no heat. None of the signs of 
 " trouble " which he knew so well was present. 
 He had fought cargoes like this one. 
 
 All was cool below; not the faintest indica- 
 tion of gas. But still there was an odor of fire. 
 He crawled out into the wings, and as he did 
 so his eyes became accustomed to the semi- 
 darkness. Thus by sight he located the source 
 of the baffling fire smell. It was under the deck 
 just forward of the hatch a heap of ashes 
 burned from all sorts of old junk. Mattresses 
 had made part of the fire. 
 
 Not two feet away from where the fire had 
 burned most briskly lay a five-gallon tin of 
 kerosene on its side. The arsonist who had 
 carried it there either had lost his nerve at the 
 end and been afraid to open its cock, or else he 
 had depended upon it to explode. 
 154
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Still this fire which had been set with the 
 intention of destroying the Daphne had made 
 much smoke and burned out impotently. The 
 deck above it was only slightly charred. 
 
 Paul raked through the ashes feverishly. 
 The coal underneath was as cool to the touch as 
 it was elsewhere. Not more than a handful of 
 it was blistered. 
 
 When he drew himself up on deck again he 
 hauled a couple of buckets of water from over 
 the side and threw it on the spot where the fire 
 had burned as a matter of extraordinary pre- 
 caution. Nor did he forget to bring the kerosene 
 out of the hold. 
 
 Emily met him with a smile of gladness, which 
 immediately turned into a laugh of humor as 
 Paul stepped into the galley again. 
 
 ' * Where have you been what have you been 
 doing? " she asked. 
 
 11 Why what is the matter? " 
 
 * ' You should see yourself in a glass. You 're 
 as black as a moor." 
 
 He paused a second to survey himself. He 
 indeed was a sorry sight. The thin tattered 
 shirt and the trousers which he had slashed off 
 at the knees when he struck out from the island 
 still clung to him damply. His limbs were black 
 with coal dust. 
 
 155
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I can imagine the color of my face," said 
 he, and he rubbed the stubble of beard on his 
 cheeks. " But never mind my appearance 
 only pour me a cup of that strong coffee." 
 
 While he drank the black brew he summed up 
 for Emily their exact situation : 
 
 " We're all alone, partner just us. A fire 
 panic emptied the vessel a fire which the mur- 
 derers of the skipper and chief mate believed 
 would destroy the ship and the evidence of their 
 crimes. The ship's laden with Australian coals 
 a treacherous cargo. Knowing its dangerous 
 character, it is easy for me to understand what 
 the first flash of smoke meant to the minds of 
 the sort of gang for'ard. They believed the 
 cargo was afire. With those in authoritv plying 
 them with fear and not a voice to steady them, 
 they must have gone over the side like rats. 
 The more haste that marked their going the 
 better were the plans of the ringleaders suited. 
 I cannot help believing that what happened aft 
 was known to only a few the second mate and 
 perhaps the third. Yet how was it explained to 
 those outside of the secret of the assassinations 
 the absence of the skipper and chief mate! 
 The ringleaders could have reported them as 
 dead without explaining what had killed them. 
 They could have reported them to have killed 
 156
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 each other. They could have reported them as 
 having fallen overboard. They could have told 
 the others even that the men had been murdered, 
 without giving any proof against themselves. 
 But I must have done with this conjecturing. 
 It is idle." 
 
 Paul put down his empty cup with impatience. 
 
 " But where could they have gone? " Emily 
 asked. 
 
 " Chi risponde presto, sa pooo. That is as 
 the Italians have it: Who answers suddenly 
 knows little. The fact that they took provisions 
 and the three boats which the empty chocks 
 show to have been in the bark seems convincing 
 that they did not flee to another ship. Perhaps 
 they believed they were near some land." 
 
 " Maybe another island a trap like ours? I 
 
 looked for our island out there It is 
 
 gone." 
 
 Paul nodded. 
 
 " But these things these sandals. There 
 was a woman " 
 
 ' * I am thinking of a woman 's presence in the 
 mystery. The French say there is always a 
 woman. ' ' 
 
 He spoke with an attempt at lightness which 
 he was far from feeling. A wince of unpleas- 
 antness indicated his true thoughts. 
 
 157
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Do you agree with the French adage? ' 
 Emily asked. An enigmatical smile played 
 across her face as she put the question. 
 
 11 There is always one woman one woman 
 out of all the world," he answered. His tone 
 thrilled her. He studied her for a second mys- 
 teriously. " You are very wonderful to me," 
 he added, but his voice was so low that it seemed 
 that the thought back of it forced itself to un- 
 conscious utterance. She met his gaze frankly ; 
 the unconcealed light of love was in her eyes. 
 
 Paul turned away from her abruptly and a 
 chill came into her heart. She saw the old ex- 
 pression of pain in his face the expression she 
 had beheld there the day she had seen him first 
 in the steamship agency in Yokohama. It al- 
 ways came so unexpectedly. 
 
 Looking out of the galley door to windward, 
 Paul saw a clear sky. The breeze from the 
 southwest held steady at about six or seven 
 knots. All overhead signs promised fine weath- 
 er, but the swell was ominous. Still all the in- 
 dications were that it was the aftermath of a 
 storm which had passed far to the westward. 
 
 " You're the chief mate of the Daphne now," 
 he said, facing her again, " and it's your watch 
 below. You slept but little last night, you 
 know. ' ' 
 158
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Last night," she said, repeating the words 
 with a shiver. * * Nor did you sleep. ' ' 
 
 " I will sleep when you have had yours." 
 
 " But I want to be with you to help all I 
 can." 
 
 She felt that even sleep must not be permitted 
 to take him from her sight. 
 
 " You will help best by obeying orders, little 
 woman. The first rule of the sea is obedience. 
 Come." 
 
 Paul started aft and Emily followed him in 
 silence. She who had never known mastership 
 in her life went whither this man led and with 
 no thought of doing otherwise. He handed her 
 up on the poop over the weather gangway. 
 
 It was an exceptionally long quarter deck for 
 a vessel of the Daphne's size. Abaft the miz- 
 zenmast and the saloon skylights stood a small 
 teakwood deck house comfortably furnished as 
 a sort of lounge. It was lighted by four large 
 ports. Through the center of this house the 
 after companionway led below. On each fore 
 and aft side was a leather cushioned bench or 
 divan, both long and wide enough to afford good 
 berths on which to steal a sleep and at the same 
 time remain within quick access of the deck. 
 Against the forward bulkhead was a collapsible 
 chart table. The deck entrance opened on the 
 
 159
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 steering compass and the wheel. Running for- 
 ward on each side of the vessel from the break 
 of the poop to the forward house were two pipe- 
 railed bridges. Similar bridges connected the 
 forward house with the forecastle head. One 
 might cover the length of the ship from the miz- 
 zenmast to the eyes of her without putting a 
 foot on the main deck. Halfway between the 
 mizzen- and mainmasts the bridges were con- 
 nected by a platform on which stood the 
 standard compass. 
 
 It was in the companionway deck house or 
 lounge, as the castaways came to call it, that 
 Paul spread a berth for Emily with some blan- 
 kets which he took from one of the staterooms. 
 Although she protested that she would find it 
 easy to remain awake if she could drink as much 
 coffee as he had that she really wasn't sleepy 
 her head had hardly touched its clean white 
 pillow when her eyelids closed fast in a deep 
 slumber. Sheer will power had been keeping 
 her up. 
 
 There was grim work ahead of Paul Lavelle 
 and he hurried to do it. It must be finished 
 when Emily awoke. Before entering the cabin, 
 however, he went forward and put a fire under 
 the donkey boiler. Here was an auxiliary crew 
 this engine a good thirty horsepower at 
 160
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 least. Hope mounted in his breast as he exam- 
 ined it and found it in first-class condition. For 
 that matter, everything about the Daphne was 
 strong and good. She had been " kept up " is 
 the way Lavelle would have described her to * 
 another seaman. 
 
 A plan of action which he had been formu- 
 lating he now confirmed. He would let the 
 Daphne lie along hove to as she was until he 
 could fix her position and then, from that point 
 attempt to work her, with Emily's aid and the 
 engine's, into a frequented track of vessels. 
 Having made such a track, he would hold on 
 there the while he did his best to make the 
 nearest land. If what the bark's log said were 
 true it would not be long, the gods of the winds 
 being kind, before they were in the track in 
 which the Cambodia had been lost. 
 
 Thoroughly this man realized the seriousness 
 of the situation which confronted him. Before 
 him was a task to give any man pause a 
 twelve-hundred-ton bark at the mercy of the 
 sea to be handled by himself, a woman, and a 
 donkey engine. There was no alternative to 
 the plan his mind had outlined. While he tested 
 it from every angle, instinct led him to many 
 necessary small tasks. He sounded the ship's 
 well. There was no telling how much water 
 
 161
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 might have entered her through the open fore 
 hatch. The rod came back as dry as a bleached 
 bone. It had not even rained since she had been 
 abandoned. This suggested examining her 
 fresh-water supply. He sounded these tanks. 
 They held a supply for fifty days even if the 
 bark had been manned by her full complement. 
 Besides, the donkey engine had a condenser at- 
 tachment for its own purposes and also for ship 
 use in the event of a shortage. 
 
 Paul Lavelle had never been aboard a handier 
 vessel than the Daphne. John McGavock and 
 her young chief mate must have been very proud 
 of her. She was molded on clipper lines. In 
 her heyday undoubtedly, judging from the size 
 of her mizzenmast, she had been rigged as a 
 ship. That day had been when the taunt, white- 
 winged tea clippers were the mail carriers and 
 passenger greyhounds of the seas ; and the men 
 who mastered them veritable nabobs of the deep. 
 The lounge on the Daphne's poop, the rich India 
 teak and mahogany and bird's-eye maple of her 
 commodious saloons, the many staterooms, the 
 appointments of her large galley bespoke her 
 as having been not among the least of these 
 fliers. Certainly she must have been a flash 
 packet in the days of her youth when she could 
 have mustered twenty-five men in a watch to 
 162
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 fist a topsail. Paul knew that vessels like this 
 had carried tremendous crews sometimes fifty, 
 sixty, and seventy-five, idlers and all in the 
 days of their pride when an hour cut from a 
 passage meant gold for owners and masters. 
 His mother's father had been master and after- 
 ward owner of such ships as the Daphne. But 
 he had sailed them under a different flag than 
 hers a flag which had driven him, the grand- 
 son, away from it and to be a marked wanderer. 
 
 This unpleasant personal thought turned La- 
 velle aft. He entered the cabin through the door 
 on the starboard side. Here he found three 
 more staterooms, which opened off an alleyway 
 similar to the one on the opposite side. These 
 rooms had been long given up to storage pur- 
 poses. One was filled with barrels of flour and 
 biscuits; the others held cordage and bolts of 
 untouched canvas. He carried away a bolt of 
 the newest, whitest duck and a coil of marlin. 
 
 No tenderer hands could have given the 
 Daphne's master and mate to the sea; no voice 
 could have bespoken their souls a kinder jour- 
 ney than the stranger who shrouded and 
 weighted them. He sent them away with a 
 prayer and a heartfelt farewell that a friend 
 who had known them and loved them a lifetime 
 might have breathed. 
 
 163
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Paul was near breaking down when it came 
 to the parting with William Elston. Among the 
 papers scattered around the lad he found the 
 first page of a letter which the boy had started 
 to his mother on the day after the Daphne had 
 put out from Sydney. That was the day after 
 Christmas. 
 
 " I'll be home in England merry England 
 with you next Christmas, mother mine 
 
 That was as much as he could read. He put 
 the crumpled sheet in the dead boy's hands 
 where he had already folded a photograph which 
 had hung over the berth. It was a picture of 
 a simple vine-covered cottage such as are to be 
 met in the byways of villages and towns 
 throughout England. Clusters of roses peeped 
 and seemed to nod over a hawthorn hedge in the 
 foreground. A collie stood at the gate, head 
 lifted, ears cocked, and muzzle searching the dis- 
 tance as at a master's coming. On the back 
 of the photograph was written in the hand 
 which had kept the log : * * My Sussex Home. 
 
 "'In a fair ground in a fair ground 
 Yea, Sussex by the sea!'" 
 
 "While the mystery which Paul met at every 
 turn beckoned him on in pursuit of it, he was 
 careful to guard against giving any time except 
 to necessary things. He was compelled to give 
 164
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 his attention to the donkey boiler and galley 
 fires forward as well as keep an eye on the sun's 
 ascension toward noon. The Daphne's position 
 was the most important thing to be ascertained. 
 To this end he searched high and low for a 
 sextant. The mate 's was missing ; the skipper 's, 
 too. He found McGavock's empty case in a 
 corner of the chart room, where it had been 
 thrown and smashed. A mercurial barometer 
 lay crushed beside it. Nor could he discover 
 the sailing chart of the bark's present voyage 
 nor any other chart of the Pacific. 
 
 Abaft the companion way staircase he came 
 upon a room which had escaped his attention 
 before. It opened upon a short alleyway into 
 the lazarette. Here were stowed the ship's slop 
 stores. A door on the left hand, as one went 
 aft, led into the skipper's room. He had noticed 
 it when he had returned to get the ulster for 
 Emily. Immediately opposite was the entrance 
 to a snug bathroom. 
 
 Paul took advantage immediately of his dis- 
 covery of the slop stores to levy upon them for 
 an outfit of clothing and shoes. When he had 
 found how plentiful was the vessel's supply of 
 water he had vanquished the dust and grime of 
 his venture into the fore hold. The touch of 
 the fresh clothing, rough though it was, was 
 
 165
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 pleasant. It was a link with the world again. 
 
 The while he dressed in the bathroom he ob- 
 served many things which told of a woman's 
 presence articles of the toilet too fine and 
 dainty for a man's use. A leather traveling 
 dressing case lay on a small stand. It contained 
 a silver-mounted assortment of brushes and 
 screw-top bottles. He paused to examine them 
 for a marking. There was none but the English 
 Sterling impression. Another thing which indi- 
 cated to him that this room had known a wom- 
 an's presence was a tiny fern basket which 
 swung over the bath. Similar baskets hung in 
 the skylight of each saloon and from the ceiling 
 in the skipper's room. These meant a wom- 
 an's watchfulness and tender care. Men who 
 live and die by the sea know no green-growing 
 things ; no flowers. The sea gives no flowers to 
 its children; no sweet odors for memory. It 
 has gardens, but they are scentless and one may 
 enter them only when life is done. So perhaps 
 it is just as well that its flora is without fra- 
 grance. 
 
 At one moment Paul was convinced that a 
 woman had been in the Daphne but recently: 
 the next he doubted it. He did not wish to think 
 that she had been carried off in those small 
 boats. The thought sickened him. 
 166
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Pie crossed from the bath into the skipper's 
 room again, hoping that he might have over- 
 looked there some place where a sextant or 
 quadrant might be stored. Alongside the desk 
 he spied a silver frame. It contained the photo- 
 graph of a laughing, blonde-headed girl of not 
 more than two and twenty an wholesome Eng- 
 lish type of face; just such a woman as he im- 
 agined a man like McGavock would go a-wooing 
 and take to wife. He regretted that he had 
 not found it sooner. John McGavock might 
 have wished to take it with him. Paul set it on 
 top of the desk again, from which it had evi- 
 dently been knocked, and turned away cudgel- 
 ing his brain to suggest where he might carry 
 his search. His glance picked up a knobless 
 door in the bulkhead to the right of the desk. 
 He dimly remembered noticing it when he had 
 taken the mackintosh and of fixing it in his mind 
 at the time as the vessel's medicine chest. It 
 was fastened with a spring lock. He stepped 
 back from it, hesitated a second, and with a 
 heave of his shoulder burst it in. 
 
 An odorous wave of English lavender rolled 
 out upon him. The man closed his eyes and 
 inhaled the sweet freshness with a lingering 
 breath. It conjured memories of mother, sister, 
 home, boyhood all the tender recollections of 
 
 167
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the days which had known no clouds; no bit- 
 ternesses. 
 
 The room which the door revealed was half 
 filled with a woman's skirts and gowns and 
 coats hanging in order from the beams over- 
 head. Along a shelf against the forward side 
 stood a neat row of six or seven pairs of shoes 
 and slippers. The drooping tops of some of 
 them suggested little soldiers grown tired of 
 marching. The invader felt as if he had broken 
 into a holy place. A cedar-wood chest stood 
 open on his left. On top of a filmy heap of 
 woman's things lay a Leghorn straw, trimmed 
 with a wreath of faded red silk roses. Across 
 the hat was a baby's dainty underslip. 
 
 Turning away from the chest with a pang 
 in his heart and a tightening at the throat 
 latch his eyes found the object of his search. 
 A sextant lay on top of the medicine chest which 
 was built into the vessel's side. As he picked 
 it up eagerly and examined it, he discovered two 
 new chart pipes standing in the corner. In one 
 of these was a new Admiralty chart of the North 
 and South Pacific Oceans. 
 
 Carrying the pipes and the sextant, Paul La- 
 velle backed out of the little room, and as he 
 went he could not help feeling that he had vio- 
 lated a shrine. 
 168
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 WAENED of a sudden that the sun was near the 
 zenith, Paul hastened from the engine room aft. 
 Although he tried to go softly when he reached 
 the poop for fear of waking Emily he could not 
 control the heels nor the squeaking of his new 
 slop chest shoes. He heard her calling him 
 before he was halfway to the wheel. 
 
 As he appeared in the lounge door she sat up 
 in dumb fear. For the moment she did not rec- 
 ognize him in the rough blue shirt and corduroys 
 and strange cap into which he had changed. 
 
 " It's I," he said, removing his cap with a 
 smile. 
 
 " Oh, Paul Paul," she sobbed hysterically 
 and covering her face as if to shut something 
 unpleasant away from her. " I I have had 
 such such a horrible dream. I " 
 
 11 There, there," he said comfortingly and 
 going in to her. She caught hold of his hand. 
 " Everything's going to come out all right. 
 You know you've been through an awful drive. 
 
 If I'm sorry I woke you. Try to go back 
 
 to sleep for another hour. ' ' 
 
 " I couldn't I couldn't. I was dreaming 
 
 169
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 that that you were out there in the sea and 
 that the ship was falling on you pressing you 
 down, down, down! It isn't true! It isn't 
 true!" 
 
 Her voice rose nearly to a shriek in her effort 
 to reassure herself. He had won to his old 
 control of himself. 
 
 " No, no, it isn't true. Now listen: We're 
 playing a big, big game here. You're my part- 
 ner. The only one I can depend on " 
 
 " Forgive me I don't mean to be selfish or 
 thoughtless or whimpery or the clinging-vine 
 sort.'* 
 
 " It's all right. All right, partner. It's a 
 wonder you've a nerve left. There are mighty 
 few men who could have come through what you 
 have and not be folded up now. But I want you 
 to think of this game. It's so big, so big, that 
 it's worth winning! " His tone, his expression, 
 brought a smile of interest into her face. " If 
 you think you can't sleep I want you to go down 
 below and get into a heavy shirt like mine the 
 strongest, heaviest clothes you can find. I've 
 pulled a lot out of the slop chest socks and 
 things. Then, there's a little room you'll find 
 it in a corner of the skipper's. It's filled with 
 a lot of woman's things. There's a cedar- wood 
 
 chest You will know what to take. ' ' 
 
 170
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " A woman's things? There was a 
 
 ' * All I can say is that the Daphne has known 
 a woman's presence. When she was here what 
 has become of her God knows." 
 
 *' Before I slept I said a prayer for her. And 
 every time I lie down to rest I will pray for her 
 safety." 
 
 Emily stood up, but she hesitated as she 
 started to descend the companionway. 
 
 " It's all right. There is nobody down there 
 now. "We're absolutely alone," Paul said, 
 noting her trepidation. ' ' ' Home is the sailor, 
 home from the sea, And the hunter home from 
 the hill.' " 
 
 Peace came to her spirit at the gentleness 
 of his words and she went below unafraid. 
 
 By the noon sights which the Daphne's new 
 master got he fixed her position as Latitude 
 33:18 north; Longitude, 177:20 east. It as- 
 tounded him. He worked his calculations over 
 and over again according to a half-dozen differ- 
 ent formulae. The result was the same, except 
 for an unappreciable difference in longitude. 
 So he made it 12 o'clock, setting the local time 
 by an old-fashioned silver watch which he had 
 discovered under the pillow in Elston's berth. 
 
 Assuming the correctness of his reckoning, 
 the Daphne was approximately two hundred 
 
 171
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 miles north and west of where the Cambodia had 
 gone down. In the light of this he had to accept 
 it as a fact that the island had drifted across 
 the steamship lane. On the 29th the Daphne 
 had been in Latitude 32 : 30 and Longitude 
 176 : 28. He visualized that day on the island. 
 There had been a light breeze from sunrise to 
 sunset out of the northeast. With the going 
 down of the sun it had begun to veer through 
 the north until it brought out of the southwest. 
 Hove to on the port tack, the bark must have 
 followed the hauling breeze until she had cir- 
 cled the island and then drifted up on it with 
 the. swell. It was the only satisfactory solution 
 of which Paul could think. 
 
 There came to him now, with redoubled force, 
 a thought which had formed in the instant he 
 had read in the log the port of the vessel's de- 
 parture and her destination : ' * What can have 
 caused a ship bound from Sydney, New South 
 Wales, toward San Francisco, to be steered so 
 far to the westward? " 
 
 He was compelled to turn from the puzzle and 
 admit that he was baffled. 
 
 During the half -hour preceding noon the swell 
 had gone down considerably. The breeze still 
 continued steady from the southwest. An 
 aneroid barometer which he had discovered in 
 172
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the lounge, when he had spread Emily's berth 
 there, stood at an ordinary normal height. So 
 he decided to hold on as the bark lay until after 
 luncheon, then get under way, run before the 
 wind for two hours, and take another altitude. 
 
 As Paul turned away from the barometer 
 hanging over the chart table, Emily came up 
 through the companionway. She wore a heavy 
 blue flannel shirt such as he had told her to 
 put on and a blue walking skirt which came to 
 the tops of a pair of tan tennis shoes. She had 
 plaited her hair again and wound it round her 
 head like a crown. The shirt was unbuttoned at 
 the throat, the cuffs rolled back. She presented 
 a figure of beautiful, efficient womanhood 
 where she paused at the head of the companion- 
 way, her arms half raised as if seeking Paul's 
 approbation. Never since the first day he had 
 seen her had she seemed so strongly femi- 
 nine. 
 
 " You are the ' There he broke an ex- 
 clamation. He halted in the step which he had 
 taken toward her. Emily waited, her eyes half 
 lowered. "When his voice broke she looked up 
 in surprise. She was pale, despite the soft tan. 
 with which exposure had dusted her face and 
 throat. With an embarrassed laugh Paul went 
 on: " You would make gunny cloth seem like 
 
 173
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the finest silk. Never ship sailed the seas with 
 such a chief mate." 
 
 It was a disingenuous, awkward speech. Ill 
 at ease he hurried on to tell her of the Daphne's 
 position by the observations he had just made; 
 of the plans he had formed. All the while he 
 talked, a thought, which had been with him 
 ever since the moment of madness in the galley 
 and which had lashed him all through the morn- 
 ing, sprinkled salt on the wounds in his con- 
 science. 
 
 " I felt as if I were committing a sacrilege 
 when I went into the little room where the cedar 
 chest is," Emily told him as they went forward 
 to prepare luncheon. " The chest is filled with 
 a girl 's wedding things. The hat the baby slip 
 I laid them away carefully and shut the lid 
 on them." 
 
 She looked at the sea with a shudder. Paul 
 noticed this and realized that he must fight, too, 
 to keep his companion's mind on pleasant 
 things. He quickly directed her thoughts to the 
 future, explaining the division of labor that 
 must be theirs and the vigilance they must keep 
 to win a triumph of the sea. Her interest was 
 enlisted more easily than he imagined it would 
 be, for her thoughts were busy with a future 
 which was calling her in all the beauty of life. 
 .174
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Emily insisted upon preparing the luncheon, 
 permitting Paul only to shake up the fire. She 
 did it well and, the while she was about it, he 
 took the opportunity to reexamine the Daphne's 
 log. He hoped to glean from it some things 
 which might aid him in the navigation of the 
 bark. It served, however, only to deepen the 
 mystery. 
 
 It was a clean record of routine for two weeks 
 after the departure from Sydney. The crew 
 had been received aboard on Christmas night. 
 It was not hard to visualize the condition of the 
 lot on such a day the sorriest day in the year 
 for an outward-bound. The following morning 
 she had sailed three months and eight days 
 gone, or, as Elston had written at noon of the 
 29th: " Our 96th day at sea from Sydney." 
 This was the 98th day. 
 
 The first thing to seize Paul's professional 
 eye importantly was the absence of any designa- 
 tion of second or third mate. If the Daphne had 
 sailed without these officers then they must have 
 been recruited afterward from the forecastle 
 gang. There was no telling from the names of 
 the sixteen members of the crew who these 
 might have been. The list comprehended every 
 nationality under the sun. 
 
 At the end of the first two weeks three pages 
 
 175
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 had been torn from the book. A week later an- 
 other page was missing. There was not a week 
 of the entire ninety-six days up to the hour of 
 abandonment which was complete. Of course, 
 it was plain to Lavelle that the man or men 
 who had defaced the book had done so to de- 
 stroy something that had been written against 
 him or them. 
 
 " But why not have hove the book overboard 
 and been done with it? " Paul asked himself. 
 He could not answer the question. 
 
 The Daphne had spoken no other vessels; 
 sighted no sail so far as the log disclosed. Fair 
 weather had attended her to the equator, which 
 she had crossed on the fiftieth day out with 
 a proper easting Longitude 119 west. This 
 was in the track made by sailing vessels bound 
 from Australia to the west coast of the United 
 States. Then had followed calms until she had 
 fallen in with the northeast trades in Latitude 8 
 north, but there was no word to explain why 
 she thereafterward had been steered into this 
 western sea more than two thousand miles off 
 the course she should have held ! 
 
 Emily's summons to luncheon made Paul lay 
 aside the log. It was a surprisingly good and 
 substantial meal, that she had whipped together. 
 While they ate Paul undertook the gold wom- 
 176
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 an's drilling in the details of working a ship. 
 On the island he and Chang had filled in many 
 a dreary minute with talk of ships. Chang had 
 taught her how to box the compass, and she 
 was proud now, indeed, to exhibit this knowl- 
 edge eager to put it to use. Her experience 
 in the boat had taught her much, too. She sur- 
 prised Paul and made him proud of the intelli- 
 gence with which she was able to comprehend 
 his explanations. 
 
 " You're bully! " he exclaimed finally in ad- 
 miration. " You're a woman with an efficient 
 brain." 
 
 This little speech made Emily glow with hap- 
 piness. She had had many a pretty compli- 
 ment addressed to her by artists at that game, 
 but never one which gave her this pleasure. 
 Somehow she felt that thus he would have 
 spoken to another man whose work he wished 
 to praise. She understood that Paul Lavelle 
 held order and efficiency above everything else. 
 She was efficient in his sight. She fairly ran 
 when he gave her the word to go aft and stand 
 by the wheel. 
 
 The donkey boiler had made a full head of 
 steam half an hour before. Now Paul started 
 the engine which was connected with two hoist- 
 ing drums protruding from each side of the 
 
 177
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 forward house. He hoisted and hauled with 
 these drums set an additional headsail, and 
 hauled his main yards round. Within ten min- 
 utes he had the Daphne bearing away to the 
 northward with the wind over her port quarter. 
 He ran aft and by hand swayed up the peak 
 of the spanker as best he could. Next he set 
 the patent log which was trailing over the stern. 
 
 Pausing to note the effect of the spanker he 
 there and then stored in his memory the fact 
 that with the peak down and a slight lee helm 
 the Daphne, with the canvas she was now carry- 
 ing, would practically take care of herself hove 
 to in a light breeze. 
 
 When he looked over Emily's shoulder at 
 the compass he could hear her heart beating 
 wildly. 
 
 " How are you heading? " he asked with a 
 slight brusqueness. 
 
 11 Northeast by north, half north," she an- 
 swered accurately and with a sharp intake of 
 the breath. 
 
 " Keep her so." 
 
 All the gold woman could do was nod that 
 she heard. The power of speech seemed to 
 have gone from her. Awe of the big fabric of 
 iron and canvas and web upon web of ropes 
 and gear obeying the impulse of her small hands 
 178
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 was upon her. It was a big game. It was a 
 terrific, intoxicating, joyous sensation. She 
 bad but one distinct thought: That was to go 
 sailing on in the Daphne just she and this man 
 alone forever and ever. All the years of her 
 past faded away the moment obliterated their 
 insignificance. Her eyes, alight with love, went 
 seeking the man's face and found him turned 
 away from her, entering the lounge. 
 
 " Rouse me at the slightest weather change 
 in two hours anyway," he called from within. 
 
 " I will," she managed to answer in a voice 
 that seemed to belong to somebody else. She 
 was trembling from head to foot with wonder 
 wonder of new strange forces clamoring 
 through her being. The one thought which her 
 comprehension dragged out of the riot and held 
 was that this man through whom and by whom 
 she lived trusted her so that he was lying down 
 to sleep in her keeping ; that he was depending 
 upon her. Her woman's soul cried out in the 
 pride of possession. 
 
 179
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 A VIOLENT ringing of the ship's bell and 
 Emily calling him in a voice fraught with ex- 
 citement aroused Paul. For a second he im- 
 agined he was still dreaming. 
 
 "Paul! Paul! Quick! " 
 
 He sprang out on deck. 
 
 " Oh! " Emily gasped in relief. " I thought 
 you would never wake. But look! " She 
 pointed forward. "A boat's there! Bight 
 ahead ! A man There ! ' 
 
 Eubbing his sleep-bewildered eyelids, Paul 
 made out a small white boat a point off the 
 Daphne's weather bow and not more than five 
 ship's lengths away. Yes, a man was standing 
 up in it. He was beckoning wildly to the bark 
 and to the sky in turn. 
 
 The boat was too far off to make out if the 
 man were alone in it. Paul had to depend on 
 his sight. The bark had been robbed of her 
 glasses. 
 
 The Daphne was making about three knots 
 an hour. While he had slept the breeze had 
 lessened. The swell was practically gone. 
 
 " Haul her up three points," said Paul, 
 180
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 facing the wheel. ' ' Keep an eye on me. Every 
 time I raise my right hand let her go off half 
 a point. When I hold up my left : Haul up half 
 a point luff! " 
 
 With this instruction snapped at Emily, Paul 
 ran forward, leaving her alone, bewildered, 
 fearful of making a mistake. But he was satis- 
 fied she would understand. He held responsi- 
 bility to be as much the mother of capacity as 
 necessity is of invention. 
 
 By instinct alone Emily interpreted Paul's 
 orders. She brought the Daphne to windward 
 and until she could see the boat and its pas- 
 senger's head just over the lee bow. She saw 
 Paul spring into the fore shrouds with a coil 
 of rope. As he did so he raised his left hand. 
 The boat disappeared. She was sure the 
 Daphne would run it down. Paul raised his 
 right hand. The helmswoman let the bark go 
 off half a point. 
 
 Paul, leaning over the rail at his last signal, 
 tried to read a name on the stern of the little 
 boat which came bobbing toward him. He 
 failed. 
 
 An old man was standing up between the 
 cockleshell's after and second thwarts. He was 
 babbling in delirium. His swollen tongue was 
 protruding from his lips. He was bareheaded 
 
 181
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 and his hairless crown seemed ready to burst 
 open in fire. Now the boat was close enough 
 to see that the derelict was alone. His cloth- 
 ing consisted of a shirt and trousers dun- 
 garees. He answered Paul's hails with a leer 
 of idiocy. 
 
 Emily steered so finely that the Daphne 
 brought the boat alongside just abreast of the 
 fore-rigging. As their sides touched, Paul 
 dropped a running bowline over the old man's 
 head and shoulders and a minute later hauled 
 him over the side. The boat overturned as its 
 occupant was jerked out of it and Paul regret- 
 fully saw it drift away. 
 
 The derelict crumpled in a heap at his res- 
 cuer's feet as he touched the deck. His face 
 and neck and arms and feet were horribly sun- 
 burned. He was literally parboiled. It would 
 have taken the woman who mothered him to 
 recognize his pitiably swollen countenance. He 
 was short and thick- set and between fifty-five 
 and sixty years old. His horny nails and blunt 
 work-worn fingers bespoke him a sailor. 
 
 Paul carried him up on the poop as the best 
 place to work over him and laid him down in 
 the lee of the lounge house. 
 
 ' * Oh, you poor, poor man ! ' ' Emily cried in 
 sympathy at sight of him. 
 182
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " This is terrible, little woman. I'm afraid 
 we can do little for him." 
 
 Paul looked away from the stranger with a 
 shudder. While he had been forward at the 
 rescue and carrying the stranger aft the breeze 
 had died away. All aloft was now idle. 
 
 " Can't I leave here and help you! ' 
 asked Emily. " We must try to save his 
 life." 
 
 " It's a mighty unpleasant task for you." 
 
 " Don't think of me as being helpless, Paul. 
 Please. I know I can do so many things. I'm 
 not the same woman you met back there." 
 
 She looked away to the westward as she 
 spoke. 
 
 * ' Come, then. ' ' He put the wheel in beckets. 
 
 11 Forward Get some water out of the 
 
 galley." 
 
 Emily ran to do as she was bidden and Paul 
 went below to the medicine chest. The medical 
 supplies provided some strychnine tablets and, 
 tincturing a glass of water with this heart stim- 
 ulant, the castaways took turn about forcing 
 drops of the fluid between the cracked lips. 
 Emily discovered a jar of beef extract among 
 the stores and made up a little of this for the 
 sufferer. 
 
 After two hours of careful and unceasing at- 
 
 183
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 tention the derelict opened his rheumy eyes and 
 stared at the sky for a second. 
 
 " Hello, stranger," said Paul. " Feeling 
 better? " 
 
 The eyes closed again and the cracked lips 
 muttered an inaudible blur of words. It was 
 plainly an unconscious answer. 
 
 A little while later, as Paul was taking an- 
 other observation of the sun, Emily thought 
 she saw a gleam of consciousness in the faded 
 gaze which found her face and held it. 
 
 11 Are you from the bark Daphne the 
 Daphne? " she asked. 
 
 Both she and Paul had discussed the possi- 
 bility of this being so. 
 
 " He walked 'tween gyves " 
 
 This was the strange whispered utterance 
 that came from the cracked lips. 
 
 " Paul, he is speaking." 
 
 Lavelle laid down' his sextant and knelt be- 
 side the stranger. 
 
 11 I asked him," the gold woman explained, 
 " if he belonged to the Daphne. He Lis- 
 ten " 
 
 The cracked lips were speaking again. 
 
 " He walked 'tween 'tween with with 
 
 gyves " 
 
 184
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 The stranger was repeating what he had said 
 to Emily. 
 
 Paul ran the words over under his breath. 
 They sounded familiar. They had a rhythm 
 that touched some cell of memory. Suddenly 
 his mind groped upon discovery. Emily ut- 
 tered an exclamation in the same instant. Both 
 of them knew what the stranger was attempt- 
 ing to say. 
 
 " Don't you remember Hood's ' The Dream 
 of Eugene Aram,' Paul? " 
 
 " Yes," he said with a nod. " ' And Eugene 
 Aram walked between, with gyves upon his 
 wrists.' " 
 
 The line, as he repeated it, had a startling 
 weirdness. 
 
 " What can the poor brain be thinking! 
 What is hidden back of this strange thought? " 
 Emily asked in a whisper. 
 
 " It may be as we have thought that he 
 belongs to the Daphne's crew. Perhaps in its 
 disorder his brain is reflecting the crime com- 
 mitted aboard here in the words of Hood's 
 poem. Yet one would imagine that if there is 
 anything in the theory of crime suggesting 
 crime that it would be something of the sea of 
 which h& would be thinking. Eugene Aram was 
 a schoolmaster and he killed in the woods. This 
 
 185
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 man is a sailor. There is no doubt about that." 
 
 " Could he have been the one " 
 
 Emily shrank from the stranger at the 
 thought which leaped into her mind. 
 
 " Don't think that, Emily. If he had a hand 
 
 in what happened here But let us not think 
 
 of what's past." 
 
 Paul carried the derelict below and put him 
 in the room next to the mate's. He swathed his 
 burns in carron oil and tied him in the bunk 
 so that the rolling of the vessel would not turn 
 him out. The man had become unconscious 
 again immediately after mumbling the bit of 
 " Eugene Aram " which Emily had called Paul 
 to hear. Lavelle left the derelict sleeping in 
 apparent peace, but with a heart action that 
 was extremely weak. 
 
 "If he lives he will be a Godsend toward 
 helping us work ship," Paul told Emily as they 
 went aft together to the lounge. 
 
 " May be that is why it was given to us to 
 pick him up. ' ' 
 
 Paul smiled doubtfully. 
 
 11 What time is it, Emily? " he asked. 
 
 " Only quarter past three," she said, looking 
 at the silver watch which he had given her to 
 carry when he put her at the wheel. 
 
 " Didn't have much of a sleepy did I! " 
 186
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " No, you didn't. Please lie down again." 
 
 " Will in a little while. Got to. But first 
 I must work out this observation see where 
 in this world or Kingdom Come we are." 
 
 He sat down at the chart table and in a few 
 minutes, weary though he was, finished his cal- 
 culations. The result checked and confirmed his 
 noon reckoning. 
 
 Emily stood beside him holding down the 
 edges of the chart while he pricked off the 
 Daphne's position and ran a line to the south- 
 eastward. It ended at Ocean Island. He ran 
 a second to Midway ; a third to Honolulu. The 
 woman watched his long fine fingers won- 
 drously fine for the rough, hard things of which 
 she knew them to be capable handling pencil 
 and ruler and dividers with a fascinating deft- 
 ness and certainty. He seemed oblivious of 
 everything else. An eager stimulation seemed 
 to be driving him. The mystery of the student 
 was about him. A feeling of woful incom- 
 petence possessed her. She realized how nar- 
 row and little her life had always been until 
 now; how little she actually knew of all the 
 things there were to be known. Her heart 
 stirred of a sudden with a marvelous thrill at 
 the thought of what a woman's triumph must 
 be to suffer the giving of such a man as this 
 
 187
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 to the world. Her breath paused tremulously. 
 What Shanghai Elsie had said to her in the 
 boat flashed into her mind: " You were made 
 for the mother of men strong men like 
 him." 
 
 The navigator, glancing up from his work, 
 beheld an expression in her beautiful face which 
 was beyond his understanding. Her glance 
 dropped as it met his and a glow suffused her 
 cheeks and thin, delicate ears that the dawn 
 might have envied. A second later her eyes 
 lifted to his again and in their expression and 
 her smile he read elation. In his blindness he 
 believed that she had been able to follow his 
 work and that it was the prospect of an early 
 deliverance which enlightened her countenance. 
 
 " There you are! " he exclaimed in a note 
 of lively and natural pleasure. ' * Look ! Only 
 
 five hundred miles to the southeast See 
 
 that speck? That's Ocean Island. If we can't 
 fetch that we'll try for Midway. A cable sta- 
 tion's there. If we can't make any of these 
 islands we'll keep right on to Honolulu. All 
 the while we'll be lying along in the steamship 
 track. Isn't it wonderful, eh? " 
 
 ' * Too wonderful to be true, Paul. ' ' 
 
 The answer came in a whisper. Tears glinted 
 in her eyes. She was glad for his sake; glad 
 188
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 that the stress which was upon him was so 
 near an end. His escape, of course, meant hers 
 
 and Intuitively she sensed that he was 
 
 very far away from her; that he was slipping 
 further and further away and she started to 
 put out a hand to touch him ; to hold him. Her 
 arm dropped as she raised it. This was not 
 the man who had held her in his arms that 
 morning. She heard his words dimly. 
 
 " If we can work to the south 'ard and the 
 eastward, by to-morrow noon we may begin to 
 keep our eyes open for ships. With any kind 
 of fair weather and a breeze from the westward 
 land should be rising over the bows in three 
 or four days. Think of it! Another twelve 
 hours and you may be going over the Daphne's 
 side into a homeward bounder ! ' ' 
 
 Emily's eyes overflowed. He winced at the 
 tears. 
 
 " Why You mustn't be crying now. 
 
 You must laugh! Sing! The chief mate of 
 the bark Daphne would better be thinking of 
 her shore-going togs! This is what we'll be 
 singing in a very short time : 
 
 " I thought I heard the captain say, 
 
 Leave her, Johnny, leave her; 
 You may go ashore and touch your pay, 
 It's time for us to leave her. 
 
 189
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 "We'll sing, Oh, may we never be, 
 
 Leave her, Johnny, leave her; 
 
 On a hungry ship the like of she, 
 
 //'* time for u to leave her. " 
 
 With a laugh and those snatches of the old 
 chanty of ' ' Leave Her, Johnny ' ' ringing from 
 his lips in a clear, deep voice Paul led the way 
 out on deck. 
 
 * ' Great old song that. Ought to hear a gang 
 of bullies at it." 
 
 " It must be fine," she managed to say with 
 a pretense of enjoyment. 
 
 He turned from her and went forward to the 
 standard compass. Going and returning, he 
 looked aloft and around at the silent plain of 
 brine. The sails still drooped in idleness. 
 There was the barest heave in the ocean. The 
 bark was without steerage way. 
 
 " Better lie down and take a nap," Paul 
 said as he came back and stood at the wheel 
 for a second. " Can't tell how long this calm 
 will last. I'm going to try to steal a little 
 sleep." 
 
 " Please do. I will lie down presently." 
 
 He did not meet her gaze, and she turned 
 toward the sea as if she hoped its purple heart 
 would give her throbbing one an answer. She 
 heard Paul leave the poop and then a clang 
 190
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 from the engine room told her he was there. 
 It sounded like a door closing between them 
 a door that would never open again and she 
 went into the lounge to weep bitter tears which 
 would not be stayed. 
 
 If she could have seen Paul Lavelle's face 
 when he turned away from her and at the mo- 
 ment when she was giving way to her loneliness 
 she would have understood that he was suffer- 
 ing, too. 
 
 After overhauling the fires under the donkey 
 boiler, Paul threw himself at full length across 
 the main hatch. He was mind weary; body 
 weary; at war with himself. Staring up at 
 the sky he brought his whole life in contempla- 
 tion. Another day, as he had told the gold 
 woman, might see them delivered from their 
 peril in the Daphne. Anyway he felt that the 
 world the world in which she belonged and 
 must have her being was not very far off. 
 And she would be going out of his life forever. 
 She must. A pariah like him could not say to 
 her, " Stay." The man who stood marked as 
 he was could say to no woman, " Stay." All 
 day the past had lashed him. All day the fine- 
 ness of him had arraigned the weakness which 
 had permitted him to forget that he could never 
 claim her love. All day the memory of his 
 
 191
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 madness in daring to kiss her as be had had 
 tortured him. He groaned in his agony of 
 spirit. 
 
 " God," he prayed aloud with lips strange 
 to prayer, " grant that I may finish ' what re- 
 mains before us of the course without dishonor 
 to ourselves or hurt to others.' For my soul's 
 sake I ask this." 
 
 With this thought his mother's dear face 
 smiled into his vision. 
 
 " Mother mine, mother mine," he murmured, 
 and his eyes closed in exhaustion. 
 
 It was dusk when Emily awoke in the lounge. 
 By the silver watch she saw that it was a quar- 
 ter past six o'clock. All was quiet as when 
 she lay down. The bark was in the same dead 
 calm. The creaking of the gear overhead and 
 the slatting of the idle sails were the only 
 sounds in the stillness. She stole below, and 
 on her way forward paused at the door of the 
 derelict's room. He still slept. She tiptoed 
 inside and wet his lips with a sip of water. 
 He murmured in unconscious thankfulness. 
 She hurried on then toward the engine room. 
 Paul must be there or in the galley. She came 
 upon him lying across the main hatch. He was 
 asleep, his head pillowed on his right arm. The 
 light of a love that would never die came into 
 192
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 her eyes as she stood for a second listening to 
 his deep breathing of honest weariness. 
 
 The chill of the coming night was in the air. 
 Emily stole aft again on tiptoe and returned 
 with a blanket. She spread it over the sleeper 
 with a mother's gentleness. He did not move. 
 Sighing, she turned away and with the silence 
 of a thief went to the galley to prepare the 
 evening meal. 
 
 193
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 COMING down from aloft, where he had gone 
 immediately after dinner to reef and furl the 
 topgallant sails as best he could, Emily met 
 Paul with the news that the derelict seemed to 
 be recovering a glimmer 'of consciousness. 
 
 " When I carried a cup of beef extract to 
 him just now he was awake, "'she told Paul. 
 " He seemed not at all surprised to find a 
 woman attending him. He thinks he is in a 
 hospital somewhere that I am a nurse. When 
 I asked him his name he ' answered : ' Number 
 19 cot 19, nurse/ " 
 
 " Did you ask him anything about the 
 Daphne? " 
 
 11 Yes; but neither the vessel's name nor 
 Captain McGavock's nor any of those you told 
 me were in the log book meant anything to him. 
 His only answer to all my questions was, 
 * Nurse, if the captain comes in before " lights 
 out " tell him I'd like to see him.' He's an 
 Irishman, I should say a kind sort of an old 
 soul, with a rare, musical brogue." 
 
 " A very broth of a bhoy, eh? " laughed Paul. 
 
 "If he is one of the Daphne's crew, I am 
 194
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 sure I am certain that he had nothing to do 
 with the mutiny." 
 
 " And that is the woman of it. Come. I'll 
 go in to see him. Let me get a lantern out of 
 the engine room." 
 
 " There is a lamp in his room. I filled it the 
 way I saw you filling the sidelights." 
 
 " You'd make a great pioneer, Emily. 
 Come." 
 
 Thus praise always came from him quickly 
 for the doing of a helpful thing. She could 
 imagine men working their fingers to the bone 
 under his mastership. 
 
 Together they went aft, Emily preceding Paul 
 through the alleyway to the derelict's door. 
 The light in the lamp, which hung in gimbals 
 against the forward bulkhead of the room, was 
 low. Emily went in and turned it up. 
 
 " Are you feeling better! " she asked 
 cheerily. 
 
 " Yes, nurse, easier much easier," came his 
 answer rather thickly. His face was toward 
 the inside of the berth. He turned over pain- 
 fully, his eyelids fluttering. ' ' Has the cap the 
 Quid Man " 
 
 His lips froze as he discovered Paul Lavelle 
 in- the doorway. He started up on his right 
 elbow. His eyes bulged wildly. His jaw went 
 
 195
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 loose. He made a vain effort to lift his left 
 hand to his brow in a salute. He tried to speak, 
 but his tongue clicked in his throat like a twig 
 crackling. With a weird, eery cry he fell back 
 in the berth senseless. 
 
 The time of a breath embraced the strange 
 scene. 
 
 * ' Oh, Paul, Paul, he knows you ! ' ' exclaimed 
 Emily in a tense whisper. 
 
 1 * I never saw him to my knowledge until we 
 pulled him aboard this afternoon," said Paul, 
 recovering from his surprise. " He has mis- 
 taken me for somebody else. Poor devil is out 
 of his head." 
 
 " Are you sure you have never seen him? ' 
 
 " I'm quite sure. But it's uncanny. Please 
 bring the lamp over here so that I can take a 
 good look at him." 
 
 Emily carried the light to the side of the 
 berth and Paul bent over the stranger. He 
 searched every feature of the weather-beaten 
 face and his own memory at the same time. 
 He was positive he had never seen the derelict 
 before. 
 
 " Just out of his head, little woman that's 
 all. I never saw him I don't know him, al- 
 though his own mother wouldn't recognize him 
 now." 
 196
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 As he spoke Paul timed the unconscious 
 man's pulse and laid an ear to his breast. 
 Emily caught an uncertain shake in Paul's head 
 as he straightened. 
 
 " Is is he going to get better? " she whis- 
 pered. 
 
 Paul answered her with a shrug of doubt. 
 
 " We can't do any more for him than we are 
 doing now." 
 
 He added this as he saw her wince and the 
 glint of pitying tears come into her eyes. 
 
 " His heart is very weak," he went on, after 
 a slight pause. ' ' He seems to be in a bad moor- 
 ing ground. He's burnt up as if he had been 
 through a fiery furnace. It may sound strange 
 to hear one speak of the sea as a fiery furnace, 
 but it is. It can burn a man's soul out of him 
 just as it can freeze it out. And mock him 
 with bitter waters he cannot drink." 
 
 There was a world of bitterness in his tone 
 as he finished speaking and left the room to 
 go aft to the medicine chest. He returned with 
 some spirits of nitre to find Emily placing a 
 wet pack across the derelict's forehead. He 
 mixed a dose of the tincture in a tumbler of 
 water and dropped some of the fluid between 
 the cracked lips. 
 
 " This will help to pull the fever down," he 
 
 197
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 explained. " It's all I could find back there-- 
 this nitre. He will need watching and attention 
 to-night. If this calm holds I will slip in here 
 now and again. ' ' 
 
 A low moan escaped from the stranger. 
 
 " Come, little woman. Let us leave him 
 now." 
 
 Paul put up a hand to turn down the light. 
 
 " No, I am going to stay and do what I can 
 for him, Paul." 
 
 " But, Emily, this this is no work for you. 
 You " 
 
 " Paul Lavelle, it is my work," the gold 
 woman said firmly. " I've been a loafer an 
 idling nothing a leaner all my life. I've never 
 helped until now. You've taught me how. You 
 can't unteach me. If my hands can aid this 
 poor old man to keep a hold upon life they are 
 going to do it. If they can make his going 
 out any easier they are going to do it. My 
 God, the thought that it might be you and 
 a woman would turn away from from 
 you " 
 
 Her voice broke. Tears choked her. She put 
 an arm against the bulkhead and buried her 
 face in it, away from Paul's sight. Her no- 
 bility of soul chastened his spirit. It exalted 
 him. In silence he went out into the night. 
 198
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Strangely there lingered in his brain as he 
 went about the ship two sentences Emily had 
 uttered with unwonted fire: " You've taught 
 me how. You can't unteach me." 
 
 There was much for the Daphne's new 
 skipper to do. While the calm gave no sign 
 of breaking and the lounge barometer held 
 steady for fair weather, still the longer he con- 
 templated the task of handling the Daphne the 
 bigger it grew in his sight. He could not afford 
 to let any precaution which suggested itself 
 pass unembraced. So he turned to work on the 
 theory that it is easier to let out a reef in a 
 breeze than it is to furl a sail in a gale. He 
 cut his coat according to the cloth he had. He 
 double-reefed the foresail and the topsails and, 
 with the donkey engine's aid, found it not such 
 a hard task as he had imagined it might be. 
 Steam hauled the blocks of the reef tackles 
 closer together than sailor hands could ever 
 have brought them. The best he could do with 
 the mainsail was stopper it with gaskets. It 
 would have been vain and futile to have tried 
 to roll the heavy canvas up on its yard. He 
 knew if it should come on to blow that the wind 
 would take care of it as he left it, but he could 
 not help it. 
 
 The last thing he did forward was to put the 
 
 199
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 hatch covers on and bar them down. The tar- 
 paulin had been burned or thrown overboard 
 by the mutineers, but Paul felt certain that 
 little water could enter the Daphne there. 
 
 As he went aft he was surprised to see a 
 light in Elston's room. Peering through the 
 port under the gangway ladder leading to the 
 poop he saw Emily writing at the dead boy's 
 desk. She stirred slightly as his eyes rested 
 on her and as if conscious of another presence. 
 A sense of guilt startled Paul and he hastened 
 aft to reef down the spanker. 
 
 With the finishing of that task the skipper 
 leaned wearily against the wheel and surveyed 
 the things he had done alow and aloft. The 
 moon, which, twenty-four hours gone, he had 
 never expected to see rise again, presently 
 caught him in its spell. It was now nearly two 
 hours high over the bark's starboard quarter. 
 In its beams the Daphne seemed but the deli- 
 cate tracery of a ship o' dreams. It powdered 
 the vessel with a silvery dust; enveloped her 
 in a mystic, spiritual splendor. The gilded 
 trucks gleamed like true gold. Masts and spars, 
 shrouds and stays and running gear were in- 
 vested with a fairy grace. The coarse, heavy 
 sails had become gossamer in their fineness- 
 butterfly wings at rest. The night, as if for 
 200
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the very beauty of the scene, wept upon the 1 
 fabric in dewy tears of pearl and opal and 
 sparkling diamond. 
 
 Emerging from the lounge Emily was caught 
 in the moonlight 's entrancement. For a second 
 it swept from her mind what had brought her 
 seeking Lavelle. Paul, staring aloft, did not 
 see her nor did he hear her footfall. A hiss 
 of steam from the donkey boiler's safety es- 
 cape, which had been set at a very low pressure, 
 broke the spell. 
 
 " It seems helpless weak to say that words 
 fail one in expressing a thought an impres- 
 sion," said the gold woman. " But all I can 
 say I must say the trite thing: How won- 
 drously beautiful ! ' ' 
 
 Her words but expressed the thought that 
 had leaped into Paul's mind at discovering her 
 and which he had bravely denied utterance. 
 
 " The sea has no fairer sight to give men 
 than this unless it is a square-rigged vessel 
 like the Daphne, ' a towering cloud of canvas/ 
 driving along over the deep in such a light. 
 But how is the stranger? " 
 
 The question brought a serious eagerness 
 into Emily's face. 
 
 ' ' Are you positive, Paul, that you have never 
 seen this man before? ' 
 
 201
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I have searched my memory to place him. 
 He is not in it. Why? " 
 
 " He was quiet for perhaps an half-hour 
 after you left. I went into the room next door 
 the mate's to to write something. Sud- 
 denly I heard him call your name, ' Lavelle.' ' 
 
 " Impossible! " 
 
 * * No ; I heard the name, ' Lavelle ' ; just as 
 distinctly as that. I was shocked. I stole in 
 very softly and stood beside him. His eyes 
 were closed, but he kept mumbling, * That night 
 at Apia ' 
 
 " Apia? Apia? " Paul repeated with inter- 
 est. * ' Yes, go on. What else did he say ? ' ' 
 
 " That was as far as he seemed able to get. 
 I thought he was trying to go over some oft- 
 told story. At last he sank back in exhaustion. 
 I did not dare to speak to him. He has slept 
 ever since and his fever is down. What is 
 Apia? Where is it? What do you think he 
 meant? " 
 
 " Apia in the Samoan Islands. My father 
 was lost there twenty-five years ago in a hurri- 
 cane which trapped three naval squadrons. He 
 was about my age at the time. Only a little 
 while ago mother wrote me that a photograph 
 I sent her might have been father's. This old 
 fellow must have served under him. He mis- 
 202
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 took me for Mm when he saw me so unexpect- 
 edly in the doorway. This explains it. The way 
 he attempted to salute when he saw me made 
 me think he was a man-o '-war's man." 
 
 A strange, unreasonable hope which had 
 sprung into Emily's heart died. 
 
 " The sea plays strange pranks, doesn't it, 
 my friend? " Paul asked after a pause. The 
 question drew Emily's gaze back from the 
 satiny blue deep. His manner of address 
 chilled her. ' ' * My friend ! My friend ' ? " her 
 brain echoed. He averted his gaze sadly. 
 
 " Yes," she assented. " It does play strange 
 pranks. ' ' 
 
 In the words a meaning was veiled that did 
 not reach him. She was thinking of the barrier 
 that had been building itself between them all 
 day. No sooner did one wall go down than 
 another rose in its place. Strangely, as she 
 watched him staring over the deep to the south- 
 ward, a feeling of contrition filled her. With 
 the truest sympathy she said : 
 
 " I am sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have told 
 you what this man said. It has stirred unpleas- 
 ant memories sad ones." 
 
 " No. The finest memory I have is my father 
 the finest memory any son ever had." 
 
 As he spoke he seemed to go still further 
 
 203
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 away from her. In silence she watched him 
 enter the lounge and return to the deck with 
 his sextant. He took an observation of Polaris 
 and then went in to the chart table to work it 
 out. With a feeling akin to shame Emily sensed 
 that he did not wish her near him and she 
 started below. 
 
 " We should try to get as much sleep as pos- 
 sible while this calm lasts." 
 
 He said this coldly and without looking up 
 from the book from which he was taking a set 
 of logarithms. 
 
 " I know I understand," she answered, 
 fighting for control of herself. 
 
 " A breeze may come at any time and we'll 
 need every bit of strength we can muster to 
 work the ship." 
 
 The gold woman could stand the uncertainty 
 no longer. 
 
 " Paul, tell me frankly have I done or said 
 anything to hurt you? What is it? What I 
 said down there in the stranger's room is it 
 that? " 
 
 The words were no sooner away from her 
 lips than anger at herself swept her. Where 
 was her pride? 
 
 " No, no. Of course you have not said any- 
 thing. Of course not. All 's well, little woman. ' ' 
 204
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 His answer came quickly, but not without an 
 embarrassment that she failed to understand. 
 He bent his head over his work again. " Don't 
 forget you are to call me at the first sign of 
 a breeze; anyway not later than 11: 30. " 
 
 They had planned at dinner that she was to 
 keep the watch for the first part of the night. 
 
 " No; I shan't forget," she answered bravely 
 and groped down the companionway from his 
 sight. Nor could she dream what pain it cost 
 the lonely man at the chart table to let her go 
 from him. 
 
 206
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 " UP with ye, yez foretop bullies! Up an* 
 
 give her a cheer! Hip! Hear her! A 
 
 bloody Englishman playin' av l Th' Star Span- 
 gled Banner ! ' That 's for us, ye bullies ! 
 
 Hip, hip! Damn ye, cheer! Now! Hip! 
 
 Again! She's struck! No! She's by the 
 reef! By God she's clear! She's in the open 
 sea! Clear! Hip! " 
 
 This monologue, shouted as if through the 
 teeth of a gale, suddenly broke upon the gold 
 woman's troubled consciousness where she 
 stood writing at William Elston's desk. It was 
 the derelict raving. The dramatic spirit of his 
 speech thrilled her. It conveyed to her mind 
 a picture of a ship fighting to sea against all 
 odds and she could see the stranger in the next 
 room somewhere in the foreground of a ragged 
 shore urging others men under him to cheer 
 her on. 
 
 A silence followed the outburst and Emily 
 tiptoed into the alleyway. She listened for Paul, 
 but no sound came from him aft. She had been 
 below about an half -hour. He must be asleep. 
 
 The gold woman entered the derelict's door 
 206
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 softly and discovered him sitting upright in 
 his berth, peering from under his two hands 
 as if at something a long distance away. There 
 was an heroic suggestion in the posture of him 
 and in the set of his scraggly white-bearded jaw. 
 
 " She's clear clear," came from him in a 
 tired whisper as Emily crossed the threshold. 
 He dropped his hands. " Hello, nurse," he 
 said, discovering the girl. She turned up the 
 light. 
 
 " You're feeling much better, aren't you! ' 
 she asked very tenderly. 
 
 She held a glass of water to his lips and lie 
 drained it. 
 
 " Thankee, nurse, thankee. Another long 
 drink, please. That's Ah! That's good. My 
 coppers is hot. Thankee. I'll be comin' out 
 o' drydoek soon. All I needs is t' get my 
 head gear overhauled an' these ribs spliced. 
 Nurse, sailormen orter have good hackmatack 
 knees for ribs." A faint smile of humor rip- 
 pled across his face. " It's a mighty long way 
 from a fore-uppertawps'l yard t' th' foc'sle 
 head a mighty long way. ' ' 
 
 The listener gathered that the old man be- 
 lieved he was suffering from the effects of a 
 fall. He lay back obediently at her suggestion. 
 His eyes appeared quite rational. Although 
 
 207
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 his hands were still scorching to the touch there 
 had been an abatement of the fever. Yet his 
 pulse was extremely weak. When Emily felt 
 it she was surprised at the strength of his voice. 
 
 " Nurse," he said, after a short pause, 
 " when that 'ere sky pilot comes roun' in th' 
 mornin' I wants you t' stand by." A twinkle 
 danced in his sea-bleached blue eyes. ' ' He says 
 th' sea gives up its dead. I'll be after askin' 
 th' gintleman how he knows. Ye '11 hear him 
 shputter at that. It'll be a fair joke. A 
 fair " 
 
 He stopped seriously. His gaze sought the 
 doorway. In a whisper fraught with a note of 
 bitter fatalism he said : 
 
 " Th' sea gives nothin' back, nurse. When 
 it takes annythin' it kapes it. Th' sky pilots 
 are but pretindin'." 
 
 Emily sensed that the sailor's mind was 
 groping around the appearance of Paul earlier 
 in the evening. She feared that it would do 
 him harm to let his mind rest on this and that 
 it would be better if she could induce him to 
 sleep. 
 
 " Don't you think if I turned down the light 
 you might be able to sleep again? " 
 
 The suggestion startled him. 
 
 " No, no, nurse. Plaze lave th' light. I'll 
 208
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 be afther stayin' awake for tk' Ould Man 
 that's me own skipper." 
 
 " But he has been here. He " 
 
 " Mother av God! " he cried. He seized her 
 hand and held it in great stress. " Thin yez 
 saw him, too! Yez saw Lavelle." His eyes, 
 filled with awe, leaped from Emily's face to the 
 open doorway and back again. " 'Tis me 
 warnin', colleen, t' be snuggin' down t' make 
 everythin' tight! " 
 
 The thing she had wished not to do she had 
 done unwittingly. She had turned his poor 
 brain back to its memory of Paul's father. 
 
 " Did yez hear him shpake t' me? Did he 
 shpake t' annybody else? " 
 
 " It was not the Captain Lavelle you think. 
 It was his son." 
 
 " His son? Not ' Prince ' Lavelle? " 
 
 The derelict shook his head in doubt, and as 
 he did so he looked round the stateroom. His 
 eyes picked up each article in it in a bewildered, 
 half -familiar way. 
 
 " Yes, his son. You must have no fears. 
 Can't you think where you are? Do try. 
 You're aboard the bark Daphne the Daphne." 
 
 "Daphne? Daphne? " he repeated. "No, 
 th' Daphne wasn't there. There was th' Tren- 
 ton, th' Nipsic, th' Vandalia, a Dutchmin called 
 
 209
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 th ' Sadler, th ' Cally-ope not Daphne. " It was 
 plain that the past was ruling his memory. 
 11 'Twas only yestiddy th' home mails come in 
 an' brought th' ' Prince ' a loikeness av his littul 
 bhoy littul Paul. Says th' ' Prince ' t' me, 
 ' Dan, an' 'tis home with th' littul feller I'd 
 loike t' be.' He says that t' me, an' him th' 
 * first luff ' an' me a common sailorman an' 
 capt'n av th' foretop be grace av three enlist- 
 ments an' sthayin' sthraight three months on 
 ind. Now he's lyin' out there in thirn God- 
 forsaken wathers an' all because av a bloody 
 lot av Dutchmin an' naygurs." " Come along 
 t' th' mass with me an' pray for God's kind- 
 ness t' th' * Prince's ' sowl. Yez'll niver sail 
 agin, my bullies, under an officher man loike 
 4 The Prince.' " 
 
 The last was not spoken to Emily, but to men 
 who were not in the room. 
 
 The sweet tender praise of the father of the 
 man she loved with all the soul of her wrung 
 tears from the listener. She could see " The 
 Prince " showing this sailor the picture of Paul. 
 She could hear him speaking. 
 
 " And he called you Dan' The Prince '! " 
 Emily managed to say and with the hope that 
 possibly it might suggest the derelict's iden- 
 tity. 
 
 210
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Dan? T' be sure he called me Dan. ' Rid- 
 headed bunch av sin ' he called me whin I wint 
 oh th' bind. I had a thatch in thim days as rid 
 as th' British merchant flag." A gnarled hand 
 wandered to his bald crown and as it touched 
 it the sailor started up. Reason seemed to have 
 made a breach in his poor brain. He looked 
 round the room quickly. A light of recognition 
 dawned in his gaze. " Dan Dan," he kept re- 
 peating. * ' Daniel Daniel Me Me Me 
 Daniel McGovern! " 
 
 Emily hearkened in breathlessness. She felt 
 herself in the presence of a mystery. Paul had 
 read her the names of the Daphne's crew from 
 the log. " Daniel McGovern " was not one of 
 them. 
 
 Tears coursed down the old man's cheeks. 
 His hands trembled. His voice quavered in a 
 childish treble. He kept on repeating the name 
 over and over again as if he had found it after 
 many years and was making sure that it would 
 not escape him again. 
 
 Suddenly he caught Emily's hand and became 
 still. He was listening. 
 
 " Mother av God where am I? " he asked in 
 a few seconds. In the next breath he exclaimed : 
 11 'Tis a ship I'm on! I c'n fale th' sea! " 
 
 " You're in the bark Daphne the Daphne. 
 
 211
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Don't you understand! Can't you remember 
 anything? " 
 
 It was evident that a great struggle was going 
 on within him. 
 
 " That's her door; that's her door," he whis- 
 pered. He pointed at the stateroom door. 
 ' ' Takewood an ' mahogany an ' maple. So were 
 th' cabins thrimmed." 
 
 Emily's heart leapt at this. He was from 
 the Daphne. She gave him a drink of water. 
 She started to call Paul. But when she thought 
 of what had happened before she drew back. 
 
 " Yez are not a spirut th' spirut av Mc- 
 Gavock's woife, eh? " the derelict asked doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 " No, no; but what has happened here? 
 What became of McGavock's wife? " 
 
 " Murder an' hell. That's what happened 
 here. Where's Morgan an' th' Jap? Th' 
 sicond mate an' th' cook? " 
 
 " Only you and Captain Lavelle and 
 
 A cunning expression came into the derelict's 
 face at Paul's name. His mind was breaking 
 again. 
 
 " What d'yez know of Lavelle? " Without 
 pausing for an answer, he went on: " * The 
 Prince ' is drown-ded these twinty odd year. 
 An' his poor bhoy he's gone this past twilve- 
 212
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 month. A man a prince av min loike his fa- 
 ther, he was. I was along av th' bhoy in th' 
 Yakutat." 
 
 Emily's senses went reeling. 
 
 11 The Yakutat? " she gasped. 
 
 " Aye, th' Yakutat th' big Alaskan brute. 
 She did for th' bhoy, but ' Th' Prince ' would 
 have loiked t' have been with us that night." 
 A boastfulness of pride came into his voice. 
 His eyes closed for a second as if he saw a 
 vision. " 'Twas loike mush whin she piled up. 
 Misther Lavelle kept a-tellin' Graham he was 
 sthandin' in too close, but 'twas no use. I heard 
 him meself tell him twict. I was at th' wheel 
 th' lasht toime. I can see th' two av thim just 
 outside th' wheel-house now. * You're wrong,' 
 says * Th' Prince's ' son. * I'm masther here,' 
 says Graham. Dhrunk he was wid th' lust av 
 pride an' power loike whin fools command. An' 
 maybe he was dhrunk, too, wid somethin' else. 
 ' Take yure orders or go t' yure room.' An' 
 * Th' Prince's ' son says he: ' I'll take me or- 
 ders.' I was at th' wheel agin in th' mid- watch. 
 God help me 'twas meself that stheered her up 
 on th' rocks, obeying orders. She climbed thim 
 loike a woild horse. Th' scut av a third of- 
 ficher had th' bridge. * Full spade asthern ' he 
 give her an' I knew thin she was broke in two. 
 
 213
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 * Full spade ahead,' an' she'd a-hung on th' 
 rocks till mornin' whin th' shore folk could 
 have saw us." 
 
 The old man paused. 
 
 " Yes, yes, go on," whispered Emily. 
 
 " A sup av water. That's it. Thankee, 
 
 nurse. Where was I? Oh Misther La- 
 
 velle comes a-tumblin' up an' Graham an' th' 
 foorth officher. ' All hands t' th' boats,' says 
 Graham. A mad, crazy coward he was. Says 
 I t' me self, ' I want none av ye,' an' I followed 
 
 * The Prince's' son. T' th' boats.' Huh! 
 An' not enough boats for th' half av thim 
 aboord. I lep' from th' wheel an' shtuck t' 
 Misther Lavelle. We had a din av woild ani- 
 mals t' foight. But we got our boat away 
 th' childer an' th' women an' th' ould folk. 
 Lavelle he was for goin' back aboord. 'Twas 
 suicide. I shoved off. We cleared th' side an' 
 just thin a big naygur I had lopped av' th' ear 
 an* overboord from th' deck reaches up an' 
 catches our gunnle. * Th' Prince's ' son cracks 
 at him with an oar. A fule shtood up i' th' 
 boat, sayin', ' Take him aboord.' An' we full 
 thin as a tick. Th' next minyute an' over we 
 wint. 
 
 " Loike an hour ago I see it. Says a littul 
 lady forninst me we'd taken her husband 
 214
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 aboord 'cause we'd seen him sick about tk' 
 decks says she, ' If we must die, we'll die 
 thegither, Jawn.' An' all round was Bed- 
 lam." 
 
 With a shudder he lay back. Emily Gran- 
 ville knew that it was of her mother and father 
 that the derelict had just spoken. But even in 
 the stress of feeling which possessed her there 
 formed in her mind an high, practical purpose. 
 She knew that if this man could but reach the 
 ears of the world with this tale it meant the 
 vindication of Paul Lavelle. It meant all that 
 was dear to him his good name, his honor re- 
 stored. The sailor must not die. He must live. 
 She would fight death for him and in justice 
 she must conquer. If she could do this thing 
 for her love she would have nothing else to ask 
 of life. 
 
 But of a sudden dread seized her. Perhaps 
 it was only the tale of a disordered brain that 
 she had heard. Why had not this man come 
 forward at the inquiry which had sent Paul 
 forth branded a coward! Why had he not told 
 this story then? If he had been on the Ydkutat 
 that night, how was it that Paul did not remem- 
 ber him? Could it be that this man's weakened 
 mind had found suggestion for the tale from 
 the force of her own mental desire? 
 
 215
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " But what became of you after that night 
 after the Yakutat was lost? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't know, nurse. I don't know. It was 
 just a year ago that I woke up. ' ' 
 
 The last anchorage of her hope went with 
 that. It was but a maundering tale, after all. 
 Or else her senses were tricking her and she 
 had imagined that he had said these things 
 about Paul and her mother and father and the 
 Yakutat! 
 
 " It all came back to me," the derelict went 
 on wearily " twelve years of my loife. I was 
 in th' seamen's Bethel in Hong Kong just a 
 year gone. An' out av a 'Frisco paper I spelled 
 that th' Lavelle av th' Yakutat' Th' 
 Prince's ' bhoy was gone lost in a tramp off 
 Kangoon. Like th' loightnin' sthrikes th' 
 twilve lost year come back. Says I, 'I'm 
 Daniel McGovern.' Whin I was afther tellin' 
 th' sky pilot he wint an' tol' th' docthors all 
 about it. Th' newspapers printed it. Whin 
 th' Yakutat' s boat wint over somethin' struck 
 me head. A whale ship picked me up. ' Th' 
 Prince's ' boy niver knew I'd served with his 
 father. All th' thrubble in me head shtarted 
 before I j 'ined th' Yakutat. I was afther fallin ' 
 from th' tawps'l yard av some ship. Her name 
 I can't raymimber where 'twas or what ship 
 216
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 'twas. I tould Elston about it fine lad he was 
 an' he laughed at me till I give him th' piece 
 out av th' Hong Kong newspaper. He 
 
 laughed I'll be afther shlapin', shlapin', 
 
 nurse. I'll be " 
 
 Daniel McGovern's eyes closed. He seemed 
 very weak. For a second Emily feared that he 
 was dying. Then, her abiding faith in the jus- 
 tice of things renewed her. 
 
 " He mustn't die, God not yet, not yet," 
 she pleaded in a whisper. 
 
 She ran from the derelict's room into the 
 mate's. Earlier in the evening she had found 
 on Elston 's desk a book a half -filled diary 
 from which she had torn a page upon which to 
 write. She carried this book and pen and ink- 
 well back to McGovern's room. She would re- 
 duce McGovern's story to writing and make 
 him swear to it. As she spread the book open 
 upon a chair and knelt beside it to write a news- 
 paper clipping fluttered out from its pages. A 
 glance confirmed the truth of all the derelict 
 had said about his strange lapse of memory : 
 
 LOST His IDENTITY FOE THIRTEEN YEARS. 
 
 Word in a Neivspaper Restores the Memory 
 of a Man Who Had Forgotten Who He 
 Was. 
 
 217
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Thus ran the headlines. To Emily Gran- 
 ville they were written in fire. 
 
 The cabin clock struck seven bells 11 : 30 
 but she did not hear it. Oblivious to all else 
 save her task and the flickering life in the berth 
 at her side she began to write a statement of 
 all McGovern had said. She felt that it was 
 in her to stay death until the derelict had 
 signed it. 
 
 218
 
 CHAPTER XXVin 
 
 A CRASH which shook him bodily brought Paul 
 Lavelle upstanding from the berth in the 
 lounge. The daze of a heavy sleep clung to 
 him. For an instant he could not imagine where 
 he was. He was in utter darkness. 
 
 There was another crash where the spanker 
 boom slammed back from starboard to port 
 again. Then, the Daphne lay over under the 
 impact of a vicious gust of wind. 
 
 It was the boom which had awakened the 
 sleeper. He leaped out on deck to find himself 
 in a shapeless blackness. There was barely a 
 breeze, but the air was filled with eery noises. 
 Overhead, overside, wherever he turned, he 
 heard them snarls, whines, whimperings, and 
 the creaking as of huge pinions wheeling. A 
 wolf pack might have been disputing a kill with 
 a horde of vultures. 
 
 The contrast of this with the exquisite moon- 
 light night upon which Lavelle had closed his 
 eyes was appalling. He groped his way to the 
 wheel, which was in beckets to keep it from 
 rolling, and peered into the compass. An un- 
 conscious sigh of thankfulness for the fore- 
 
 219
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 thought which had made him light the binnacle 
 lamp escaped from him. The Daphne was 
 heading north by east. The gust of wind which 
 had slammed the spanker boom must have come 
 out of the southeast. He faced that point. An- 
 other gust confirmed the assumption. He ran 
 into the lounge and struck a match. The silver 
 watch lay on the chart table. It said 1 o 'clock. 
 He had not returned for this, but to see the 
 barometer. It stood at 30 : 00 ; just where it had 
 hung all day. 
 
 But what he had not discovered by daylight 
 he now saw in the flickering match light. The 
 barometer hand and the indicator were caught 
 together. His heart went cold. He lit another 
 match and struck the bulkhead with his clenched 
 fist. The blow jarred the hand and indicator 
 apart. The delicate wisp of blue steel quivered 
 at 30 :00 for a breath. Then, it began to fall. 
 It reached 29 :10 and clung. Even as the match 
 went out it recorded 29 :00 and was still falling. 
 
 He had seen a mercurial barometer go from 
 29 : 30 to 26 : 03 in the Kau Lung. That was a 
 world's record! 
 
 Despair seized him. What could he and a 
 lone woman do in a brute of a vessel like this 
 undermanned even with twenty men before 
 the mast? 
 220
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " God Almighty, what have I done? "he cried 
 aloud in agony of spirit. 
 
 A smash of wind from the southward was the 
 answer he got. 
 
 He gritted his teeth and flung a curse at the 
 sea: 
 
 " I'll beat you you and all your foulness! 
 You sneak ! " he yelled at the blackness. 
 
 He dropped down through the companion- 
 way, calling " Emily! Emily! " 
 
 There was no answer. She was asleep, poor 
 girl, he thought. That was why she had let 
 him oversleep; why she had not called him 
 when it turned black. 
 
 " Emily! Emily! Where are you? " 
 
 Echoes answered him. Eunning forward, he 
 saw the light beaming from the derelict's room. 
 As he reached the doorway he beheld the girl 
 standing beside the old man's berth, a book in 
 her left hand and her right uplifted. 
 
 ' ' So help me God, ' ' the derelict was solemnly 
 repeating after her. 
 
 As the last word came from his lips he dis- 
 covered Lavelle. 
 
 " < Th' Prince '! " he cried and fell back, a 
 hand at his brow in salute. 
 
 The book dropped from Emily's hand. She 
 swayed where she stood. She had fought and 
 
 221
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 won a battle as brave as any field of war ever 
 knew. Yet an angry glance, which struck her 
 and cut like a whiplash, was her reward. 
 
 " Why didn't you answer me when I called? ' 
 Lavelle demanded, but paused not on an an- 
 swer. " Get aft to that wheel! Go! Run! 
 Keep her nor 'east until I can get back to you ! ' 
 
 With that he was gone from her. Like a 
 soldier, without questioning, without a word, sho 
 went aft to do what this man had bidden. 
 
 The fire under the donkey was dead when 
 Lavelle got to the engine room. It would take 
 an hour to make steam. The barometer and his 
 sea wisdom told him that he had only minutes 
 to prepare. 
 
 Whatever the battle was to be it was with 
 his own hands that Paul Lavelle must fight it. 
 With this realization a terrific rage filled him. 
 It was fed with each breath that he snatched 
 out of the blackness. The sea was a personal 
 enemy. Thus men who deal with it in long 
 intimacy come to visualize it. The sea was a 
 sneak a coward; always striking below the 
 belt. 
 
 Lavelle had squared the yards before he had 
 gone aft in the evening, leaving the braces slack 
 eo as to cast the Daphne on the most advan- 
 tageous tack at the first coming of a breeze. 
 222
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 He had expected a wind from the north and 
 west. Here it was out of the southeast. The 
 gusts which had roused him had struck the 
 bark on the starboard quarter. It had brought 
 her to on that side. She was now forging ahead 
 on the starboard tack. As she rode she was 
 under a double-reefed foresail, reefed upper 
 and lower fore and main topsails, foretopmast- 
 slaysail, and inner or boom jib. The growing 
 breeze lifted the slack out of the starboard or 
 weather braces. The lone worker in the dark- 
 ness led the falls of the lee braces to the main 
 deck capstan and hove them in. And wherever 
 he went he belayed rope and line with a double 
 hitch. There was a finality about everything 
 he did. 
 
 He set the maintopmast-staysail, hoisting it 
 with the capstan. He would ride her with that 
 if it should be possible to heave her to after 
 he had located the bearing of the storm's center. 
 
 He ran aft only to stop at the entrance to 
 the alleyway. He remembered the boom jib. 
 
 ' * Too much headsail with a reefed spanker, ' ' 
 he muttered. 
 
 He sped forward again, found the jib hal- 
 yards, and let them go. As a last touch of pre- 
 caution he bent the jib downhaul to the fore- 
 topmast-staysail clew as a preventer sheet. 
 
 223
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Aft he sped again and through the cabin. A 
 faint murmur came to him as he ran by the 
 derelict's roof. 
 
 Out of the pile of slop-chest stuff in the after 
 cabin he snatched an oilskin coat and sou'- 
 wester. He struggled into them as he climbed 
 through the companionway into the lounge. 
 
 A flash of a match brought the barometer's 
 dial out of the blackness. 28 : 03 ! 
 
 An impulse to smash it for its trickery seized 
 him. He forbore and plunged outside. He 
 thrust Emily away from the wheel. As he bent 
 to peer into the binnacle she shuddered at the 
 rage which distorted his face. Thus men, she 
 thought, must look in battle with the blood lust 
 upon them. There was something primordial, 
 relentless, about him. He was the elemental 
 man, sensate that a kill was at hand. 
 
 The Daphne was heeling over, further and 
 further, under the onslaught of the rising wind. 
 
 The roughness with which Lavelle had 
 pushed Emily away from the wheel started a 
 demon of resentment to life in her. Her arms 
 were aching. It had seemed that the wheel must 
 draw them from their sockets while she was 
 alone. Steering the Daphne while Lavelle had 
 been forward had not been the tame task of the 
 afternoon. 
 224
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 She stood trembling where this man had 
 shoved her. She could have struck him. 
 
 " Get below! Close every port every door! 
 Jump ! Then, come back and light that lamp in 
 the lounge! ' : 
 
 Anger swept her at his brutal tone. Tears 
 blinded her. They were the tears of a rage 9f 
 which she had never believed herself capable. 
 She could not move. 
 
 " Go on! "he yelled. 
 
 A furious squall twisted the two words into 
 a shriek. 
 
 A sea slopped over the weather quarter and 
 ran hissing across the deck to leeward. It 
 sucked hungrily at the gold woman's feet and 
 ankles. At its touch her rage grew, but passed 
 from the man at the wheel to the sea. It was 
 the sea that he hated, not her. It was the sea 
 that she hated. It was the sea that had spoken 
 through him. The sea was his enemy. It be- 
 came in that moment personal to her her 
 enemy. 
 
 Thus the spirit of Lavelle reacted upon Emily 
 Granville's. Could she have seen her face at 
 that instant she would have discovered in it 
 the same elemental, the same primitive passion, 
 which had shocked her in his. 
 
 The girl ran from the deck and below. 
 
 225
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Lavelle saw her when she returned and lit 
 the lamp in the lounge. She wore a long oil- 
 skin. A sou'wester covered her head. Out of 
 the tail of his eye he caught her staring at the 
 barometer. He noted it with a thought that 
 she had " some sense." 
 
 She came out to him and had to press her lips 
 against his ear to make him hear her mes- 
 sage. 
 
 " Everything closed be low! Barom 
 28:00!" 
 
 That was a fall of three-hundredths of an 
 inch in less than ten minutes! 
 
 The Daphne was in a trap. Somewhere near 
 her somewhere in the southern quadrants of 
 the compass between the east and the west the 
 center of a storm was bearing down upon her. 
 Whether the barometer was lying or telling the 
 truth was of little moment now. Lavelle knew 
 he could not be mistaken in the signs of a re- 
 volving storm. He knew the meaning of the 
 wolf-like noises and the wing creakings in the 
 air; the oily, sooty, sight-killing blackness. 
 But one sign was absent and, even as he noted 
 this, it appeared a sickening, brick-red color- 
 ing which cuts the eyes acridly like hay smoke. 
 It diffused itself through the blackness without 
 lessening the night's impenetrability. With its 
 226
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 coming the wind veered quickly from the S.S.E. 
 into the south. By the law of storms this 
 change told the lone man arrayed against the 
 sea that the center was bearing upon the Daphne 
 eight points to the right, or out of the S.S.W. 
 The bark was trapped in the storm's advancing 
 or dangerous semicircle. He could not heave 
 her to now. There was but one thing to do : 
 Eun. Let the storm overtake the bark and 
 catch her in its vortex and the sea must win. 
 It depended alone on the Daphne's worthiness 
 and the hands and brain of the man at her helm 
 to beat it. 
 
 With a full-manned ship the thing to do now 
 was heave to. The enraged man laughed to 
 himself at the thought of his trying to do this 
 alone. > 
 
 By half-past two the wind had veered into 
 the S.S.W. and was blowing a whole gale. Tak- 
 ing it broad over the starboard quarter the 
 Daphne was fleeing northeast. At times her 
 helmsman was sure she was lifting free of the 
 mauling waters and hurtling through space. 
 Again he felt that she was bound headlong to- 
 ward the quiet ooze ; that no vessel could with- 
 stand the onslaughts of wind and brine which 
 were being rained upon her. But never his 
 rage at the sea grew less. It burned in him 
 
 227
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 like a living fire; it robbed him of all sense of 
 fatigue. 
 
 Emily, sitting in the lounge and watching the 
 barometer for any change, saw the silver watch 
 mark the hour when the day should have been * 
 breaking. But no light rifted the blackness out- 
 side. The barometer hand clung quivering at 
 28 : 00 ! The Daphne 's master yes, her master, 
 too had told her she must rest as much as she 
 could. Not for her own sake, but the battle's; 
 that was his reason. ' ' Because I may want to 
 use you! " was what he had yelled when she 
 had put her ear up to his lips. 
 
 When the watch said six o'clock and there 
 came no day, Emily suddenly realized what a 
 time had passed since Paul had taken the wheel 
 from her hands four hours and a half. Not a 
 bite had crossed his lips in eleven hours. It 
 was impossible to get forward to the galley. 
 As she admitted this she remembered the canned 
 provisions in the alleyway stateroom opposite 
 the derelict's. She recalled also the flour and 
 biscuit barrels in the starboard alleyway state- 
 room. 
 
 The gold woman went caroming down the 
 companionway and through the reeling saloons. 
 The din of an hundred forges filled them. The 
 derelict's light was giving a last flicker. Daniel 
 228
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 McGovern slept. As the lamp went out Emily 
 discovered her book on the floor and picked it 
 up. She put it on a shelf in the storeroom and 
 fled with three cans which she felt out of the 
 darkness. She carried these up into the lounge. 
 One of the cans held corn the others tomatoes. 
 She dropped below again and groped to the 
 pantry. She was seeking water. There wasn't 
 a drop in the tank. The discovery staggered 
 her. The man at the wheel must drink. An 
 idea of a substitute flashed into her mind. The 
 tomatoes would serve for food and drink. She 
 located a hook under the china racks and found 
 a can opener she remembered having seen 
 there. 
 
 As a glimmer of day asserted itself in the 
 blackness, it found Emily standing at the wheel 
 beside Paul, holding a can of tomatoes up to 
 his lips so that he could drink when he dared. 
 He managed to snatch two mouthfuls. Then, 
 the can was blasted out of the girl's hands. It 
 flattened itself against the mizzenmast. The 
 tin cylinder might have been a bit of cardboard. 
 It held where it struck for a second, as if the 
 gale had imbedded it in the steel mast. 
 
 With this sudden growth in the fury of the 
 gale came the slightest increase of daylight. 
 This light seemed to spring from the sea; not 
 
 229
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 from overhead. It was sufficient to trace what 
 lay forward of the break of the poop. Two tall, 
 reeling masts with whalebone tips, the edges of 
 the rails, an outline of the top of the forward 
 house, and the forecastle head rising out of a 
 roil of waters composed the suggestion to 
 Emily's mind that that part of the Daphne was 
 still there. And all round were ragged peaks 
 of water like the ice-crusted crests of mighty 
 mountains. They were Alps gone drunk. The 
 Daphne was hurtling from one peak to another 
 smashing through them. 
 
 The light restored Lavelle's vision to enable 
 him to read in one glance the tally of the battle. 
 But a ribband remained of the big mainsail 
 which he had been unable to furl. The fore- 
 upper topsail had left only its leech ropes behind. 
 There was not a head sail left except the fore- 
 topmast-staysail. This, the maintopmast-stay- 
 sail, the reefed foresail, the fore lower topsail, 
 and the upper and lower main topsails and the 
 spanker still held. The fore and aft bridges 
 were gone. A twisted stanchion told where the 
 standard compass had stood. The donkey 
 funnel, the galley stovepipe, and the empty boat- 
 chocks were missing the top of the forward 
 house was swept clean. 
 
 Scarcely had Lavelle 's eyes made this assess- 
 230
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ment when the main upper topsail went. It split 
 with a shot-like crackling. A second later only 
 a wisp of canvas was left to tell that a sail had 
 ever been bent to the yard. 
 
 Anger burned in Emily at the sight. It was 
 personal the ravaging of that sail. The gale 
 flung a cry of protest back in her throat. The 
 slope of Paul's sou'wester hid his face from 
 her. The point of a grim jaw was all that she 
 could see. Only his arms moved with the wheel 
 in steadying the bark's drive. Otherwise he 
 might have been a fixture of the ship. It was 
 not enough to be near him. A yearning to hear 
 his voice came upon her; to look in his eyes; 
 to read his thoughts. She caught him, jerking 
 his head to bring her nearer. She struggled up 
 in the lee of him and pressed her ear to his lips. 
 
 1 ' piece bacco ! ' ' 
 
 That was all she heard. She did not under- 
 stand for the moment what he meant. Then, it 
 dawned upon her wondering consciousness that 
 he wanted a piece of tobacco. A piece of to- 
 bacco ! Her brain pounded on this as if it would 
 never let the thought go. She fought her way 
 into the lounge, and as she went she remem- 
 bered a box of oaky, black slabs which she had 
 seen in the slop-chest litter. She had reached 
 the bottom of the companionway when the 
 
 231
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Daphne gave a shuddering leap. It hurled the 
 girl across the saloon to leeward. She caught 
 the knob of a stateroom door and dragged her- 
 self from her knees to her feet. Looking for- 
 ward, through the port alleyway, she saw a 
 flood of water pouring in through the door open- 
 ing out on the main deck. 
 
 Instinct carried Emily to this breach in the 
 wall of the bark's defense. She got her back 
 to the door, like a woman of the Zuyder Zee 
 warding a broken dyke gate, and she closed it. 
 The strength of the primitive fighting man's 
 woman was hers in the struggle which accom- 
 plished this. She cried in anger as she bolted 
 the teakwood slab against the ravaging waters. 
 Yet with this thing done, her first thought was 
 that she must get back to the wheel with a piece 
 of tobacco. Going aft, she did not notice that 
 the derelict's berth was empty, but the man at 
 the wheel knew that the stranger was not there. 
 
 Hardly had Emily left the deck when the 
 fore lower topsail went tattering out of its bolt 
 ropes. The Daphne shook herself as if freed 
 from a leash. The man who watched nodded in 
 approval. Had it been possible for him to have 
 cut this sail away when the main upper topsail 
 had gone he would have done it. In the mo- 
 ment that he nodded he saw the flash of a man's 
 232
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 face going over the rail in the weltej to leeward. 
 The face was calm. Death seemed already to 
 have masked it. It was the derelict going 
 away. 
 
 "Why, that that's Driscoll the quarter- 
 master who was with me stood by me the 
 night the Yakutat was lost ! " 
 
 It was thus in the instant that the sea gulped 
 Daniel McGovern that recognition flashed into 
 Paul Lavelle's mind. But as the thought 
 formed he put it away from him. His eyes 
 were tricking him. A man can't stand for six, 
 seven, or eight hours he had lost count of time 
 staring at a compass card which whirls and 
 dips like a crazy roulette wheel at Macao and 
 trust his sight. After Chang had spent a 
 twelve-hour trick at the Kau Lung's wheelhe 
 had imagined many strange things. The quar- 
 termaster, Driscoll, had been lost these ten 
 years past ten years this very month of 
 March. And the sea was trying to make him 
 believe that the derelict was he : endeavoring to 
 trick his brain because it couldn't beat him any 
 other way. This thought refueled his rage. 
 
 The belly of the spanker split from head to 
 foot with the sharp staccato-rattling of a Gat- 
 ling. The helmsman's senses apprehended it 
 as it happened. Before the Daphne's head had 
 
 233
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 fallen off half a point at this sudden release of 
 pressure on her after part Lavelle had met it. 
 
 Emily, struggling to force the lounge door 
 open against the gale, saw and heard the 
 spanker go. It dazed her to note that Lav el e 
 did not glance up. She had to throw herself 
 flat on the deck to get to the wheel. Crawling 
 up under Paul's lee she held the tobacco up in 
 front of him, keenly wondering what he meant 
 to do with it. She had been able to imagine only 
 that he intended to use it in some mysterious 
 way in connection with the compass; perhaps 
 to keep the card from rolling and whirling. 
 Paul settled the mystery quickly by wolfing a 
 corner of the black plug. He nodded with sat- 
 isfaction as his jaws closed on it. It seemed 
 fantastic to the girl. She could have screamed 
 in delight she who had loathed tobacco chewers 
 as long as she could remember. The incident 
 was fraught with a message of hope that words 
 could not have conveyed. 
 
 By signs Paul made Emily understand that 
 she was to fill and trim the binnacle lamp. This 
 task took her below to levy on the oil in the 
 derelict's lamp and the lamp in the medicine 
 chest. Then it was she discovered that Daniel 
 McGovern had left the Daphne. She realized 
 how the alleyway door had come to be open, but 
 234
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 at the time her senses were beyond apprehend- 
 ing that a stranger had come out of the sea and 
 gone back to it. She levied upon the storerooms 
 again and crawled up into the lounge. The 
 silver watch said noon. The barometer stood 
 at 28 : 01 ! When she tried to open the door 
 and get back to Paul with food and this news, 
 she could not budge it more than an inch. The 
 gale held it. She looked out of the after 
 weather port. Through the flying spume she 
 saw Paul glance up. His eyes rested on her 
 for a second. He shook his head for her to 
 stay where she was. 
 
 There came a lull at three o'clock. Emily's 
 recruited strength enabled her to fight her way 
 to the wheel with another can of tomatoes and 
 some crackers. She replaced the lighted bin- 
 nacle lamp. It went out. Four times she had 
 to return to the lounge and relight it before 
 she succeeded in spiting the gale. As she 
 straightened up finally in success, she saw 
 Paul's gaze shoot up to windward. 
 
 Not three hundred yards away and abreast 
 of the Daphne drove a big four-masted, painted- 
 port bark a bulk of twenty-five hundred tons 
 under a reefed foresail and a reefed main 
 lower topsail. For a breath her midship sec- 
 tion hung poised on a peak of water, the rest of 
 
 235
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 her red underbody, fore and aft, clear of the 
 welter. Her poles pierced the lowering sky. 
 The peak dropped from tinder her like the jet 
 of a fountain ceasing. She fell away into a 
 canon, wave-walled higher than her tops. The 
 wind went out of her foresail. The topsail 
 drooped. She paused in her flight like a 
 wounded bird, reeled helplessly; and then the 
 wall of water over her stern fell, pooping her. 
 A huddle of men started from around the foot 
 of her jiggermast. One of them in bright yellow 
 oilskins reached the doomed thing's port rail 
 and waved to the Daphne high over him as if 
 cheering her on. Another wall of water and 
 still a third crashed upon her. Her bows rose. 
 Stern first she went down to the port of missing 
 ships, a hurricane shrieking her requiem. 
 
 In the twinkling of an eye, even as a trout 
 snatches a fly, this proud venture of man was ; 
 and then it was no more. 
 
 Brain-stunned, incapable of comprehension, 
 Emily crawled round the binnacle and got be- 
 hind the lee side of the wheel. In a lull she 
 heard Paul yelling. 
 
 " be low! Eat rest! Need help by 
 and " 
 
 She obeyed as one in a trance. As the lounge 
 door banged behind her the comparative quiet 
 236
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 within, though it was a veritable orgy of sound, 
 enveloped her senses like a drug. 
 
 It was seven o'clock when she awoke. 
 Through the weather port she saw the yellow- 
 colored head at the wheel touched by a gleam 
 of the binnacle light. Seventeen hours now he 
 had been standing there like that. She lighted 
 the lounge lamp. The barometer stood at 
 28 : 00. 
 
 When she fought her way out to him with 
 this word and shrieked it at him he simply 
 nodded that he heard. 
 
 ' ' When are you going to let me 
 help? " 
 
 She succeeded in crying this question into his 
 ear in segments. 
 
 "Damn it! Shut up!" 
 
 He cried this at her savagely. 
 
 In that instant the Daphne paused slightly. 
 A shiver went through her. There was a crash 
 which sounded even above the roar of the 
 storm. It was as if a masked battery had am- 
 bushed the bark from overhead. The foretop- 
 gallant mast and all its hamper and everything 
 above the crosstrees on the main were going by 
 the board. A streak of lightning illuminated 
 the gale's work. 
 
 Emily found the end of the gasket with which 
 
 237
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Paul was lashed to the wheel shaft. She tied it 
 around her waist and took hold of the lee wheel. 
 It was her answer to his savagery. He saw 
 what she did and he did not send her away. 
 
 Thus, with never a word, they stood together 
 for two hours during the height of the storm, 
 hurtling along the coast of eternity. 
 
 Of a sudden there came a rift in the clouds 
 overhead. A shaft of moonlight shot through 
 the blackness and Paul's hand^covered the gold 
 woman's in a gentle pressure where it clutched 
 a spoke. 
 
 " think beaten it! " he shouted at her 
 presently. " thirsty! ' 
 
 Emily unlashed herself and brought him an- 
 other can of tomatoes. She took her post be- 
 side him again without a word. By midnight 
 the gale's back was broken. The sea kept drop- 
 ping with the lessening of the wind. It was 
 long after dawn, however, when Paul umashed 
 himself from the wheel and put Emily in his 
 place. 
 
 " You take her now for a few minutes," he 
 said in a broken husky voice. " Going heave 
 her to." 
 
 He started forward. His legs went out from 
 under him. He struggled to his feet only to 
 drop again. He got up moaning and with a 
 238
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 curse on his lips. Clutching the rail he reeled 
 down to the main deck. 
 
 Emily heard the palls of the capstan and then 
 Paul's voice came to her in a pathetic wail. 
 
 " Hard down! Hard down! " he cried, but 
 it was a sweep of his arm which carried his 
 meaning to her. In obeyance she rolled the 
 wheel over. The Daphne came round on her 
 heel, until the maintopsail, flying aback, hove 
 her to. 
 
 Paul staggered aft again, balanced the wheel 
 and put it in beckets. 
 
 "I'm pretty tired tired," he said in a whis- 
 per. He crumpled in exhaustion where he had 
 fought for thirty hours. Blood oozed from the 
 ends of his swollen fingers. His eyes lay far 
 back in his head. His breath came in moans 
 and sobs. 
 
 239
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 PAIN which stabbed with daggers of fire and 
 ground and twisted like the working of cogs 
 stirred Paul about noon into consciousness. 
 He laj across the wheel grating where he had 
 dropped, nor had the gold woman's strength 
 been equal to moving him inside. A pillow was 
 under his head; a blanket covered him. At his 
 feet wrapped likewise in a blanket and her head 
 on one of the lounge cushions slept his " part- 
 ner." As the hard deck was his pallet, so she 
 had chosen to make it hers. He realized the 
 wonderful meaning of this with a thrill which 
 lifted the daze from his aching brain and eyes. 
 
 With the instinct which has been given to 
 women alone to serve and watch by sense Emily 
 awoke in the instant that Paul moved to a sit- 
 ting posture. Their glances met in a smile of 
 trustful, mutual understanding. 
 
 " Well, partner," Paul said drily and look- 
 ing round the Daphne, l 1 we are a bit battered, 
 but I think we may say we are still in the 
 ring. ' ' 
 
 The humanness of the little speech lifted the 
 cloud of the night from her spirit. Sht 
 240
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 laughed. This man could fight as she had never 
 dreamed it possible that human brain and flesh 
 could, and when it was all over he could smile. 
 She brushed away a mist which gathered on 
 her lashes and struggled to her feet. 
 
 " And it is worth everything to be be here 
 in the ring all the battering all the strife 
 with you a partner like you." 
 
 " Thank you. That pays for everything." 
 
 As Paul spoke he struggled halfway to his 
 feet only to sink back again with his breath 
 catching in pain. His left hand, with which he 
 had tried to pull himself up, fell from the 
 wheel. He compared it with his right. Both 
 were swollen and purple. The cuffs of the oil- 
 skin coat dropped back and showed his shirt 
 wristbands choking the flesh. But it was not 
 his hands that hurt so much as it was his feet. 
 They seemed ready to burst the shoes. 
 
 A sob broke from Emily at his helplessness. 
 She dropped on her knees at his side and picked 
 up his right hand. All the tenderness of her 
 woman nature was alive in the instant. 
 
 " What is it, Paul? Your feet your 
 hands ! ' ' 
 
 Tears choked further utterance. Alarm for 
 his safety seized her. A terrible apprehension 
 touched her heart. 
 
 241
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " There never was a battle fought without 
 somebody getting hurt." He tried to smile 
 despite his pain. " Remember I was at the; 
 wheel a pretty long time. ' ' 
 
 " More than thirty hours." 
 
 " That long? " He nodded. " Please get me 
 a knife there ought to be one in the pantry." 
 
 " A knife? " she repeated with misgiving. 
 He nodded. 
 
 Emily hastened below and returned with a 
 small sharp carver. Paul held out both hands 
 to her. 
 
 " Cut " 
 
 She shrank from him with a cry. His smile 
 at the thought which he read in her eyes made 
 her study him with a strange, frightened 
 .glance. 
 
 " Not my hands the wristbands, partner." 
 
 She severed the wristbands and the tears 
 which fell on the bruised hands seemed for the 
 moment to salve their hurt. He offered to take 
 the knife then, but she knelt quickly at his feet 
 and slashed the wet, binding leather from the'm. 
 The while she did it he kept abjuring her to 
 be careful not to cut off a foot by mistake. He 
 would have been silent could he have known 
 how sacred to this woman was the doing of this 
 personal service for him. But it was just ae 
 242
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 well that he was not silent, for as she saw what 
 the sea had done to him it took the last element 
 of her will to keep from breaking down. 
 
 " Now you must go and lie down," she urged 
 when she had helped him to get up to a stand- 
 ing position. 
 
 " No, I must keep going. I " 
 
 He swayed and sank to his knees. His will 
 nor her strength could keep him up. He gritted 
 his teeth in rebellion. 
 
 " I must get up! I will and go on! " 
 
 This came from him in a savage cry. He 
 tried to rise again. He got one foot under him 
 and then fell inertly with his back against the 
 side jof the lounge house. Abused Nature would 
 have her due. 
 
 The sight of this strong man down, helpless, 
 tore the heart of the gold woman from its 
 moorings. She knelt beside him, agony blind- 
 ing her with tears. 
 
 " Paul, you must listen to me," she pleaded 
 passionately. " You must let me help you in- 
 side where you can rest where I can do 
 something for you something to bring 
 back your strength bathe your hands and 
 feet." 
 
 ' ' No, no ; not that, ' ' he protested faintly. 
 
 A gentle relaxation of mind and body was 
 
 243
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 stealing over him under the pressure of the ami 
 with which she supported his head. 
 
 " But you must," Emily went on. " It is 
 my part my duty, my privilege ! I will do it ! 
 You must do as I say until you are well and 
 strong. It will not be long." 
 
 The rebellion of his spirit grew quiet under 
 the influence of her surpassing tenderness. He 
 thought it pleasant to have somebody say must 
 to him. 
 
 " Look, Paul, the ocean grows calmer with 
 the minutes. The skies are clearing. There is 
 nothing we could do " 
 
 " But there's so much to do " His senses 
 
 began slipping away. He was able to murmur 
 only, " Water," before a long blank came. 
 
 The gold woman looked round for the water 
 canister which she had filled and brought aft 
 when Paul had collapsed and fallen asleep. It 
 lay overturned down to leeward. Laying his 
 head on a pillow she ran forward and refilled the 
 canister. At the first sup which she was able 
 to force into his mouth he opened his eyes. 
 
 " More, more," he pleaded when she would 
 have taken the canister from his lips, thinking 
 he could drink no more. " Oh, that is so good," 
 he sighed, finishing the draught. * ' I feel much 
 better already." 
 244
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Although Paul smiled bravely, his eyes be- 
 trayed him. Emily saw that he was fighting to 
 conceal a great pain. 
 
 " Come, Paul." She lifted his head again. 
 * ' You must try to get inside. You must do this 
 for me." 
 
 He looked up into her face, and there was 
 that in it which filled him with meekness. 
 
 "I'll do what you say," he answered in a 
 whisper, and he summoned his last reserve of 
 strength. 
 
 On hands and knees he crawled into the 
 lounge, Emily taking as much weight from his 
 swollen wrists as she could. She cut the oil- 
 skin coat from his shoulders so that he should 
 not suffer the pain of having the sleeves drawn 
 over his hands. She spread a berth deftly, hur- 
 ried below, and returned with dry comfortable 
 clothing which she found in the lockers under 
 the skipper's bed. The slop-chest supplies were 
 soaking in the water which had come in before 
 she had succeeded in shutting the alleyway door. 
 She went below again and brought lint and 
 bandages from the medicine chest. All of these 
 things she did without suggestion. It was part 
 of the new efficiency unto which she had won. 
 Had she been trained to do what she did she 
 could not have done it more thoroughly. This 
 
 245
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 man whom she served might have been her own 
 child. 
 
 Watching her quick movements from where 
 he sat on the floor of the lounge, Paul wondered 
 whence she was drawing the strength that was 
 denied him. Nor was it given to either of them 
 to understand this strength which love can bring 
 to its service. It is something not to be under- 
 stood. 
 
 " Why are you able to do this and why am 
 
 " Because you have rendered your service, " 
 she interrupted. " You made me rest. You 
 stood alone through all the fight. At times I 
 rebelled at it, but now I am glad. I slept this 
 morning and -- " She paused with a shudder. 
 " I know I must have slept or gone out of my 
 senses during the storm. There are blanks 
 so many We are all alone again, you know. 
 The derelict -- " 
 
 " I know. Please don't think of it now. 
 Please - " 
 
 " No we will not think of it," she said with 
 an effort. " Come." 
 
 She bent over him to help him to the waiting 
 berth. A plait of her hair swept his lips. He 
 kissed it as she drew it back and tossed it over 
 her shoulder. Her bosom touched his head. 
 246
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 She did not know that she was but adding tor- 
 ture to his pain. 
 
 " No, partner," he protested quickly. " I 
 have let you do too much already. Let me try 
 alone." 
 
 By elbow and knee he crawled up on the berth 
 and sat down. 
 
 " There," he said with a small note of tri- 
 umph, and he was fearful of meeting her gaze, 
 for he sensed that she stood waiting. * ' I think 
 if See how she's heading, please." 
 
 He looked out through the door at the wheel 
 jerking in its beckets like a horse champing a 
 bit. 
 
 Emily went swiftly to the binnacle. 
 
 " West nor 'west," she called. 
 
 " Then this breeze ought to be about nor 'nor '- 
 west." He paused, and then added quickly as 
 he saw her, in all of her innocence, coming 
 back : f 
 
 " If I could get something warm to drink- 
 some coffee or tea. Do you think " 
 
 "But you " 
 
 "I'm sure I can do a lot for myself now. 
 See." 
 
 He lifted his arms over his head. By a levy 
 on all his will he concealed the pain which tore 
 him at the effort. It satisfied her. 
 
 247
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " You shall have something warm to drink as 
 soon as these hands can make it," she said, and 
 as he heard her going forward he threw himself 
 on the berth and buried his face in the pillow 
 to smother the cry of anguish which his lips 
 refused to stay. 
 
 Swiftly as Emily moved to her task, it took 
 her longer than she had imagined it would to 
 prepare something. The galley was in a litter 
 of wreckage and the range was water-soaked 
 where the sea had poured through the unpro- 
 tected vent left by the swept-away stovepipe. 
 When she returned aft again it was to awaken 
 Paul from a doze. In the meantime he had suc- 
 ceeded in changing into the dry clothing she had 
 laid out for him. He had also bandaged his 
 ankles and wrists. 
 
 The gold woman brought tea and hardtack 
 biscuits and a jar of marmalade. 
 
 " It was the best I could do quickly," she 
 explained, raising the chart table and placing 
 the things on it. The table had fallen some 
 time during the night and the silver watch lay 
 dashed in pieces on the floor, its parts mingling 
 with the internals of the barometer which had 
 been torn from its fastenings. The sextant, un- 
 damaged, lay where it had been hurled on the 
 starboard bench or berth opposite Paul. 
 248
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " It's all right, partner," Paul said as Emily 
 discovered the broken things. " Don't worry." 
 
 When it came to drinking his tea his hands 
 could not hold the mug in which she was com- 
 pelled to serve it. She gave it to him mouthful 
 by mouthful. The hot drink was stimulating. 
 There was satisfaction of hunger, too, in the 
 biscuits and marmalade. She stopped feeding 
 him and drank and ate something only when 
 he closed his lips firmly and turned his face 
 from her. 
 
 And all the while there was raging within 
 him a battle against the impulse of his consum- 
 ing love to take this wonderful innocent woman 
 to his breast. Had he not won the right to tell 
 her that he loved her? a voice within kept re- 
 peating, and always the specter of the past, 
 armed with the resolution of silence he had 
 formed two days before, cried: " No; unless 
 you are a coward." 
 
 " I think I will sleep," Paul said presently, 
 when Emily offered to rub and rebandage his 
 ankles. 
 
 " Is it because you do not wish me to do it! " 
 
 ' ' Why, no. Of course not. ' ' 
 
 " You thought nothing of doing it for me. 
 You have done everything for me and with a 
 tenderness that I can remember only as part of 
 
 249
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 my mother. You are so tender and again you 
 are so harsh as hard and cold as steel." 
 
 " The sea makes one harsh -" He could 
 not control his voice and he stopped short in 
 fear of whither he might be led. He noticed 
 then for the first time that Emily's skirt was 
 clinging to her damply. " Do please go below 
 and get into some fresh, dry clothing. The 
 thought that you are looking out for yourself 
 will help me to sleep. Do try to lie down, too." 
 
 " If there is nothing more I can do here I 
 will go," she said obediently. " But it is a 
 strange thing : With all the wetting I have un- 
 dergone I have not the sign of a cold." 
 
 " Salt water ought to have at least one vir- 
 tue," he answered. As he spoke he nodded for 
 her to go below. 
 
 Paul Lavelle slept only for a few minutes at 
 
 time, if he really slept at all during the next 
 couple of hours. He heard the gold woman 
 descend the companionway and he followed her 
 footsteps through the cabin. Even when all was 
 quiet below and he knew that Emily must be 
 lying down wakefulness rode his brain. He 
 could see the future stretching away in loneli- 
 ness without this woman in his life, and for 
 the first time in all the suffering he had known 
 he thought of a way out. In his blackest hours 
 250
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of the past ten years this had never occurred 
 to him. To fight on to the end without cease, 
 with never a let-up in the drive, had been the 
 ruling impulse of his spirit. To fight on now 
 in silence and give life to this precious woman; 
 to stand up manfully no matter what the odds, 
 with his whole soul in the battle, until he should 
 bring her to safety this was the one course. 
 After that there would be a way if it were 
 denied him that he should not suffer death in 
 the giving of life to her. A gnawing pain in 
 his left hand finally drew his attention to it. 
 He saw that the .green jade ring which he had 
 worn constantly since leaving Yokohama was 
 choking the finger which it encircled. He sat up 
 to take it off, and as he did so he was startled 
 to hear a strange heavy footfall in the cabin. 
 He was on the point of trying to rise when 
 Emily came up through the companionway. It 
 was her footfall that had alarmed him. As her 
 head and shoulders rose above the teakwood 
 rail around the staircase, the sun, now far down 
 in the west, shot a golden beam through the 
 port over Paul's berth. It touched her head 
 with the fire of a divine beauty. 
 
 " Oh, I woke you," she whispered tremu- 
 lously, and at the same time she sensed his de- 
 pression of spirit. 
 
 251
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 11 No, I was awake," was all he could say 
 for the moment. It came from his lips in a 
 barely audible voice. 
 
 To be loved by and by love to possess a 
 woman like this the world, aye a thousand 
 worlds were well lost ! That was the thought 
 which excluded everything else from his mind. 
 
 The glow of a sleep which had refreshed and 
 restored lingered in the cheeks of the gold 
 woman and in the tips of her shelly ears. Her 
 mouth was retouched with its natural delicate 
 scarlet. Her sensitive nostrils quivered at the 
 sunlight's touch. Her blue-shirted bosom, 
 heaving ever so slightly from the exertion of 
 climbing the companionway, moved the loose 
 plaits of her hair hanging over her shoulders 
 like ropes of molten gold. Hardship had drawn 
 her features only slightly. Youth's capacity 
 of quick recovery was hers. Physically she was 
 little changed, but there was a subtle difference 
 in her. Her whole being now seemed to breathe : 
 " I have no doubt of life." 
 
 " I've changed and slept," she said as Paul's 
 glance swept her. " I feel as if there had never 
 been a storm." 
 
 She stepped backward with a smile. 
 
 " Are you laughing at them! " she asked. 
 She drew back her skirt slightly and exhibited 
 252
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 a pair of rubber sea boots which were inches 
 too large for her. There was something boyish 
 in the action that did draw a smile from Lavelle. 
 " You are laughing," she went on, and pouted 
 prettily. " But do so as much as you wish. 
 They're sensible." 
 
 * * Bight you are. They 're the very thing for 
 decks like this. We should have thought of 
 them before." 
 
 " They're much too large, but I've put on 
 socks and socks and stuffed the toes with 
 things." 
 
 This statement of a most obvious fact brought 
 a genuine laugh from Paul. It passed quickly 
 as the pain caused by the ring reasserted 
 itself. 
 
 " Oh, let me do that for you," Emily said, 
 crossing to his side. Before he could object she 
 had knelt by him and taken his hand. " Why 
 did I not think of this hours ago? Poor, poor 
 fingers. Am I hurting you? There? " 
 
 The perfume of her hair, of her breath, of 
 her whole being was about Mm. As the ring 
 came off his hand closed on hers and he slipped 
 the jade, with its strange seal in Chinese hiero- 
 glyphics, over her third finger. It was her left 
 hand that he had chosen. 
 
 " I want you to take this, Emily to wear 
 
 253
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 it." He was fighting hard to control his voice. 
 " Chang gave it to me the day I left Yokohama 
 when the old chap thought he would never 
 see me again : the day you and I met. ' ' 
 " But, Paul, I Poor old Chang would 
 
 " You must keep it. Have I never told you 
 what it says that seal? " She shook her head. 
 " In Canton there is a very old temple. It is 
 doubtful who built it. It stands near not far 
 from the Hall of the Five Hundred Wise Men. 
 This seal is copied from its altars : * Man has 
 many reckonings with man, but only one with 
 God.' " 
 
 The gold woman looked up, starting to re- 
 peat the line as Paul finished it. What was on 
 her lips died there, unutterable in the light of 
 his gaze, and what it awakened in her. Her 
 eyes flashed back to his an answer of fire. The 
 barriers of his determination crashed. 
 
 ' ' Oh, my darling ! " he cried in anguish, and 
 he drew her head to his breast. 
 
 The gold woman's mouth met his and clung, 
 rendering with flame its first kiss of love. 
 
 1 ' Oh, I love you, woman of all the world, love 
 you, love you ! I am living alone by the power 
 of this love. It has been mine for ages. It has 
 been it is my strength ! It is my soul ! It is 
 254
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the breath of my soul! Its single impulse, its 
 desire, its law, its life! ' : 
 
 He held her from him and searched her face. 
 
 " And I love you. I have always loved you, 
 my " 
 
 A burning kiss blurred the words on her lips. 
 
 In silence they held each other's gaze in 
 adoration until suddenly a shadow of dread 
 darkened the man's face. 
 
 " Another storm such as we have just passed 
 through We could not live through it, dar- 
 ling. There was hardly a minute of last night 
 or the day before which did not come armed 
 with a summons to judgment. And, oh, the bit- 
 terness that was mine when I thought that you 
 could not know; that I could not tell you what 
 was in the soul of me! ' : 
 
 " But, Paul, even had death come to us then, 
 I should have known it afterward. I should 
 have known it and you would have known that 
 I loved you." 
 
 The firm conviction of this speech filled Paul 
 with a new kind of awe of her. 
 
 " Darling," he murmured, and yet, as he 
 kissed her eyes, the specter of the past laid its 
 cold finger upon his lips. He drew back. 
 " Some day you may hate me." 
 
 "Paul, Paul! Stop!" 
 
 255
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Her voice was fraught with fear. 
 
 " If we live the days will come when I come 
 to you a broken, spurned thing. I have no 
 place among the men of my people. I am wild ! 
 Crazy ! My tongue should be torn from me for 
 telling you what I have. I have no right to 
 tell I have no right to love! And you of all 
 
 women Emily, there is something that 
 
 night on the Yakutat, I must tell you we can- 
 not " 
 
 Her hand closed his lips. 
 
 " No, no, no, Paul. You mustn't. I know. 
 There is nothing to tell me. There is no past 
 to come between us. From the momentjthat I 
 knew on the Cambodia that you were Paul La- 
 velle I knew the truth. There is no past. But 
 there is a future, my darling our future." 
 She drew his head to her and kissed his eyes. 
 " My fearless stars. For my faith's reward I 
 ask only this : Your silence until I say you may 
 speak. Promise. ' ' 
 
 " I promise," he answered, with a strange, 
 indefinable hope burgeoning in his heart. 
 
 As he spoke the sun passed from the ports 
 of the lounge and brought Paul Lavelle from 
 his dreaming to the reality of a peril which 
 he had too long forgotten. Emily read his 
 thought. 
 256
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " I will go forward and prepare our evening 
 meal," she said. She kissed him and went out 
 of the lounge, and at her going torment ruled 
 his heart. 
 
 " My God, what have I been doing! What 
 have I been thinking? Where is my manhood 
 that I should be lying here sacrificing her 7 
 What a weak, shameless love mine must be! ' : 
 
 A feeling of abasement scourged him as each 
 thought clamored for an answer. Although his 
 body rebelled, he arose and kept his feet. Grop- 
 ing below, he found a pair of boots which would 
 admit his ankles and went forward. 
 
 Emily, with a cry of amazement, discovered 
 him suddenly, standing in the engine room 
 door. 
 
 " Paul, you must go back. You must rest," 
 she commanded. " It's clear. Go back. How 
 can you stand? ' 
 
 " There's too much Irish in me, dear," he 
 answered, forcing a smile. " You must never 
 let an Irishman stop to nurse his hurts. He 
 can't keep his mind on pain and the fight at the 
 same time." 
 
 " But the fight is over." 
 
 " It's never over when the sea's on the other 
 side." 
 
 He was determined and she wisely forbore 
 
 257
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 to say anything else about his physical condi- 
 tion. The meal that she prepared the hot 
 coffee, the warmth of the galley fire brought 
 life in them to a glow. Tomatoes formed one of 
 the dishes she cooked. Paul shuddered at the 
 sight of it. 
 
 " Not unless I am starving," he said sol- 
 emnly. 
 
 As they rose from the meal Emily sensed that 
 something was lacking. 
 
 " Isn't there something else, dearheart? 
 What is it you wish you had? ' 
 
 ' * A good cigar a big, fat, black fellow ! " he 
 laughed. " Then, the world would be com- 
 plete." His glance interpreted his meaning. 
 
 " But there is tobacco aboard to chew," she 
 suggested with a smile. 
 
 ' ' I never attempted to chew tobacco but once 
 in my life. I was only a little fellow visiting 
 my grandmother's. The gardener provided it, 
 or rather I took it from his workbench. Just 
 as I settled down to prove to myself that I was 
 a man grandmother called me into the house. 
 I was caught. In my fear I swallowed the cud." 
 He made a wry face and then went on in a 
 dreamy way: " During the storm whether it 
 was last night or the night before, I can't re- 
 member I thought if I could only get a piece 
 258
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 of tobacco to chew there was no storm that 
 blew that could put me down. Funny, wasn't 
 it? " 
 
 Emily was silent, nor did Paul seem to notice 
 it. She could think only of what his stress of 
 mind must have been during those long black 
 hours. 
 
 It was his last personal reference that even- 
 ing to what had happened during the two nights 
 and a day of the Daphne's war with the sea. 
 She felt that he did not wish to speak of it. 
 Nor did she. 
 
 " As soon as the stars come out I am going 
 to find out where we are " Emily inter- 
 rupted him with a laugh. " Where the Daphne 
 is," he added, catching her thought, and joining 
 her laugh. 
 
 " I am with the stars, Paul. I feel as if we 
 were alone in space together." 
 
 She was standing beside him, looking out 
 through the galley door at the setting sun. Hei 
 stooped and kissed the crown of her head rever- 
 ently. 
 
 He told her presently that it was more im- 
 portant to put the bark in a condition to get 
 away from where she was than to find out 
 where she was. One thing was certain: the 
 Daphne had plenty of sea room. The weather 
 
 259
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 promised fair and therewith he summoned all 
 his strength to take advantage of it. 
 
 While Emily busied herself about the galley, 
 Paul renewed the fire under the donkey boiler. 
 
 " Bully old crew," he said to the engine and 
 patting its piston in the familiar way men come 
 to treat inanimate things which serve them. 
 " Only you can't go aloft. You can set sail, 
 but you can't furl it. But you're not going to 
 fail us. You won't, will you? " 
 
 He was starting aft to fill the lamps there 
 when Emily came to thek engine room door. 
 The impulse of action that was driving him was 
 in her, too. 
 
 " Only give me something to do, Paul, and 
 I'll do it just like a real sailorman." 
 
 ' ' Keep your eye on this steam gauge. When 
 it goes to sixty, open the fire door. It mightn't 
 be a bad idea if you learned to sound the 
 ship. There's the sounding rod on that hook. 
 You will find the well between the pumps. 
 Come. I'll show you." 
 
 " I know where it is," she said eagerly. 
 
 A half -foot of water was sloshing in the port 
 alleyway and in and out of the rooms .opening 
 upon it as Paul entered the cabin. He found 
 the plug of a scupper just inside the door and 
 pulled it out. Glancing out on deck, he saw the 
 260
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 vent of another scupper. He located this in 
 the mate's room. As he pulled the plug free 
 and withdrew his hand a sheet of paper stuck 
 to it. Half curiously he carried it into the 
 after saloon where he filled the lamps which 
 would be most useful. It was some writing of 
 the poor Sussex lad's, was his thought. As he 
 lighted the first lamp the paper caught his eye 
 again. He picked it up. The first line startled 
 him and led his eyes leaping through the rest 
 of the water-blurred text in a breathless com- 
 prehension. 
 
 " In the name of God, Amen : Being of sound 
 and disposing mind, I, Emily Granville, 
 spinster, of San Francisco, California, do de- 
 clare this my last will and testament : After the 
 payment of all just debts the rest, residue and 
 remainder of my estate, real and personal, 
 wherever it may be, of which I die possessed, is 
 bequeathed to Paul Lavelle, sometimes called 
 Whitridge. I hereby revoke all wills hereto- 
 fore made by me. In the event of the said Paul 
 Lavelle, sometimes called Whitridge, not sur- 
 viving, I direct that one-fourth of my entire 
 estate be divided, share and share alike, among 
 those named in said former wills and that the 
 three-fourths remainder be converted by the 
 State into a fund to be used and administered 
 by the State for the succor and assistance of 
 all persons, regardless of race or creed, who 
 
 261
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 may suffer by disaster upon any of the seas. 
 I further direct that this fund shall be known 
 as the Lavelle-Granville fund. If any heir 
 under the said former wills shall contest this 
 will, Paul Lavelle surviving or not surviving, 
 they shall forfeit to him or the said fund any 
 interest they may have had or may claim in 
 the said estate and receive $1. I do this in 
 the realization of the imminent peril of death 
 and as a testimony to the genuine manhood of 
 Paul Lavelle ; and also in memory of my father. 
 My faith is that Paul Lavelle in justice must 
 survive and that this^ill shall come to the eyes 
 of men properly and without suspicion. The 
 language I have used is remembered from my 
 father's will with the hope that it will be bind- 
 ing legally. 
 
 " Aboard the bark Daphne at sea, March 31, 
 191. 
 
 " EMILY GBANVILLE." 
 
 Paul Lavelle read this wonderful document 
 a second and even a third time. It was epic in 
 his sight. He really had no distinct thought. 
 His mind was whelmed by awe of the char- 
 acter of the gold woman which the wet sheet of 
 paper revealed. There came to him a picture 
 of her writing at the desk in Elston's room on 
 the evening of the day they had come aboard 
 the Daphne. It was then that she had written 
 this will. He kissed the paper because it 
 262
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 seemed part of her and then tore it into little 
 bits. 
 
 Emily was withdrawing the sounding rod 
 from the well when Paul returned to the deck. 
 Plainly she was in distress. 
 
 "I'm afraid, Paul, I'm a poor sailor," she 
 said as he came to her side. ' ' I can 't tell any- 
 thing from this. ' ' 
 
 Paul took the rod from her and dried it. 
 
 " You sounded as the ship rolled. The way 
 to do is to wait until she comes on an even keel. 
 Like this. Now." 
 
 " That is just the way I did." 
 
 A moment later he hauled the rod out and 
 gasped in dread. It showed four and one-half 
 feet of water in the Daphne's hold! 
 
 There surged through him a second later the 
 rage with which he had met and fought the 
 storm. Here was a new and unexpected gage 
 of battle. It swept from him the last vestige 
 of pain and fatigue. Instantly the suggestion 
 of flame, characteristic of the man in action, 
 marked his every movement. 
 
 " She's an iron vessel with a coal cargo," he 
 hurriedly told Emily. " If the storm has 
 
 strained her " A mist came into his eyes 
 
 and he glanced overside. " That cursed sea 
 isn't going to get you! It isn't! Come on! ' 
 
 263
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Emily exhibited but a momentary apprehen- 
 sion of danger. The joy of working with Paul 
 in a freely admitted equality swept it away. 
 The only recognition of her femininity was his 
 insistence upon her wearing a pair of gloves 
 which he had brought from McGavock's room. 
 
 Together they got the pumps rigged to the 
 donkey engine and started them sucking two 
 black streams out of the hold. 
 
 " Two hours .will tell us whether the enemy's 
 in force or not maybe sooner," Paul said as 
 he left Emily to go about the ship with a lan- 
 tern to discover if possible if the Daphne had 
 sprung a leak in her topsides. When he came 
 to the fore hatch his hopes lifted at the thought 
 that the sea might have entered here through 
 the uncalked and untarpaulined covers. It was 
 a dreary tangle of hamper which met his gaze 
 in this part of the vessel. For an instant he 
 was puzzled to observe that everything he 
 touched left a black, oily smear. He crawled 
 up under the forecastle head and there found 
 what he considered an explanation of the 
 Daphne's survival. Two barrels of engine oil 
 were lashed to the heel of the bowsprit. One 
 of these had been sprung by the storm and was 
 still weeping its contents upon the deck. It was 
 this oil running out of the hawse pipes and the 
 264
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 scuppers which had calmed the bark's tem- 
 pestuous way. 
 
 This discovery relieved Paul's mind. He had 
 felt compelled to believe that at times during 
 the storm either he or the vessel had been be- 
 witched. In all his long experience he had 
 never seen a vessel make such good weather of 
 things as the Daphne. If he had been in com- 
 mand with a full crew under him he would have 
 poured out oil just as accident had done it. Go- 
 ing aft he paused to tell Emily about the oil 
 and to report everything apparently tight for- 
 ward. 
 
 " A barrel of oil didn't stand for more than 
 thirty hours' steering, did it? " she asked, with 
 pride flashing from her eyes. 
 
 In silence Paul went on aft to complete his 
 examination of the ship. It felt strange to have 
 a champion. He found the cabins practically 
 free of water. Everything seemed tight. He 
 stopped for a second in the derelict's door. 
 
 " Poor old fellow was out of his head," he 
 muttered. There came to him a picture of the 
 stranger's departure. The loss of this man, 
 with only a flicker of life and mind in him, was 
 but a small thing compared with the destruction 
 of the four-master and all hands in the fullness 
 of strength. But the thought of the derelict 
 
 265
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 moved Paul with a great tenderness. This man 
 had known his father. 
 
 " He believed I was ' The Prince/ " he 
 mused. " Well, father, if there's any way of 
 knowing and I'm sure there must be you 
 know I've tried to play the game squarely." 
 
 An unsettling thought broke in upon this. 
 What had made him think that the derelict was 
 Driscoll, a quartermaster of the Yakutat? He 
 shut his mind against what he believed was a 
 vagary. There was no doubt that he must have 
 been out of his senses many times during the 
 storm. 
 
 Making his way through the lounge to the 
 poop he paused to examine the sextant. It was 
 undamaged. It made him think of the chronom- 
 eter. He hurried below to the chart room and 
 wound it and then went forward. 
 
 The pumps were still bringing forth their two 
 black streams. Emily stood beside them 
 oiling their bearings with the touch of an 
 engineer. 
 
 '* I can't make out where this water is com- 
 ing from. Either she's strained or it pounded 
 in through the fore hatch," he told her. 
 " Everything about deck seems all right. I've 
 looked overside, too. Everything seems all 
 right there. Her masts went clear of her. How 
 266
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 did you manage to close that bulkhead door all 
 alone? " 
 
 " I don't know, Paul," she answered frankly. 
 She winced. " I don't know where I found the 
 strength to do it. The whole sea was coming 
 in, it seemed. I remember I was very angry. 
 But I have been thinking about the stran- 
 ger ' Her eyes filled with tears. " Could 
 
 it be that I I shut him out in the night in 
 that " 
 
 " No, no, dear, put that thought away from 
 you forever. He was gone beyond human aid 
 or recall before you got below. I remember 
 your going away from the wheel to do some- 
 thing. You had hardly closed the lounge door 
 when Let us not think of it." 
 
 " He was " Emily interrupted. 
 
 ' ' Let us shut out every thought of those two 
 nights, dear, as long as we can. Shut it out 
 with the past. Soon enough black nights like 
 that will come between us. Won't you try? " 
 
 As Paul spoke he took one of her gloved 
 hands and patted it. There was an appeal in 
 his gaze : a flash of the old pain which she had 
 been praying she might never see in those gray 
 eyes again. 
 
 " We will not think of it, my ' prince,' " she 
 answered. 
 
 267
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 With a quick smile he turned away and went 
 forward. She watched him until he disappeared 
 through the door of the sail room in the port 
 side of the forward house. 
 
 In less than two hours there was a sudden 
 cessation of the black streams from below and 
 a weird moaning of the pumps where their 
 plungers pounded emptily. 
 
 " Paul! Paul! " 
 
 The gold woman sent this cry forward, and 
 as she did so she cut off the steam as she had 
 seen Paul do. She thrilled at the sight of the 
 engine stopping at the touch of her small hand. 
 She was laughing as he came to the engine room 
 door and saw what she had done. 
 
 " The pumps There is no more water! r 
 she cried eagerly. 
 
 ' * Give her another turn and let me hear, ' ' he 
 said, and he went to the mainmast. 
 
 Now the engine turned over at a twist of her 
 wrist. 
 
 " Avast! " called Paul at the sound of the 
 dry plungers. 
 
 The engine stopped instantly at the word of 
 command. " We're all right, Emily. That 
 water must have pounded through the fore 
 hatch." 
 
 She met him with a laugh of sheer joy which 
 268
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 made her even white teeth gleam. It was joy 
 at the lifting of the cloud which had fallen upon 
 both of them at the discovery that the Daphne 
 might have sprung a leak. It was joy, too, 
 that comprehended an ability to do things with 
 her hands. 
 
 " I think I should rather be engineer than 
 mate, Paul. It is a lot of fun making this 
 engine go and stop." 
 
 " You will have an opportunity to be mate, 
 engineer, and midshipmite in another couple 
 of hours. We are going to have a bit of a moon 
 to-night and I am going to get as much sail 
 bent as possible." 
 
 Under the stimulation of some strong coffee 
 they began immediately afterward to bend sail. 
 With the donkey engine's aid it seemed ridicu- 
 lously easy to snake the heavy rolls of canvas 
 out of the sail room and hoist them aloft. 
 Emily, with a woman's natural quickness, had 
 the trick of using the hoisting drums in perfect 
 control five minutes after Paul explained it to 
 her. It did not surprise him nor was this so 
 because of any personal reason. She thought 
 when he told her that she was as good a work- 
 ing force as any two sailors and better than as 
 many men landlubbers, that it was but an im- 
 pulse of his natural kindness cheering her. 
 
 269
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Not a bit taffy, dear," said he, noting her 
 doubt. " Every word true. Only thing a 
 woman lacks is bull strength and perhaps judg- 
 ment in personal matters." 
 
 The gold woman laughed. 
 
 " Are you arraigning my judgment? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " No, but what I said is quite true," he con- 
 tinued seriously. " You can take a woman or 
 girl or boy and in one trick at a wheel teach 
 them to steer better than men who have spent 
 a lifetime at sea." 
 
 Emily got that pleasure out of the tasks in 
 which she helped which comes to one working 
 under the direction of another who knows what 
 he is about. Nothing seemed too hard ; nothing 
 seemed hard enough. The will of the man was 
 inspiring. As she watched him climbing aloft 
 or dropping below along a shroud or backstay 
 it seemed impossible to believe that he had been 
 down and helpless but a few hours before. 
 
 The moon came to light their work. By about 
 10 o'clock they had bent a new foresail, a new 
 spanker, and new boom jib. 
 
 " That much will give us another little lease 
 on this world," Paul said as he called quits for 
 the night. " To-morrow morning we'll get a 
 couple more rags on her, after some fashion." 
 270
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 But his work was not done. The while Emily 
 prepared a snack of supper he went aft and 
 took two stellar observations. The reckoning 
 that they gave him was, indeed, startling. The 
 Daphne was five hundred and eighty-five miles 
 northeast of her last position! The navigator 
 could hardly believe his eyes. He took a third 
 set of observations. The result was the same. 
 There had been times during the storm when 
 he had realized that the Daphne was driving 
 with terrific speed. But he had anticipated 
 nothing like this. Yet in this moment the sight 
 of her clean clipper underbody came to him as 
 he had seen it the morning he and the gold 
 woman swam out from the Isle of Hope. Al- 
 lowances for the distance made from the first 
 noon until the time the storm had struck the 
 Daphne and of her drift all that day gave him 
 the wonderful speed average of more than six- 
 teen knots an hour while the storm lasted. 
 Still doubt lingered until he drew out of his 
 memory a day's work of the famous clipper 
 Flying Cloud 433^ statute miles from noon to 
 noon. 
 
 The Daphne, by this reckoning, was lying in 
 the great circle sailing track of vessels bound 
 from the Japan coast toward San Francisco and 
 Puget Sound. All thought of trying to make 
 
 271
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the Hawaiian Islands left him. The California 
 coast lay less than three thousand miles to the 
 eastward. The prevailing winds in this track 
 from then on would be from the west and north- 
 west. The Daphne, with fair weather, should 
 be able to make this distance in a month. If 
 no vessel should rescue them they could win 
 home in that time. 
 
 ' ' Oh, you Daphne packet ! " he cried in glee 
 as he hurried forward to tell Emily the good 
 news. He went with a snatch of * * The Dread- 
 naught " bursting from him. 
 
 " 'With everything drawing aloft and alow 
 
 She's a Liverpool packet! Lord God see her go! '" 
 
 Emily was on the point of going to the galley 
 door to call him when she caught that bit of 
 heart-lifting song. A wild, compelling note of 
 the sea was in it. 
 
 We're homeward bound in a clipper ship, 
 lassie! " he called as he discovered her. Nor 
 would he eat or drink until he had told her 
 where the storm had carried the Daphne and 
 what it meant to them. He was like a big, 
 wholesome boy and she told him so. His en- 
 thusiasm stirred her with a desire to be under 
 way immediately. The Daphne became per- 
 sonal in the gold woman's thoughts as Paul 
 272
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 described her capabilities, and therewith she un- 
 derstood the love of a man for a ship which 
 women rarely do. 
 
 " Unless we're picked up by some other 
 vessel we'll be up with the Golden Gate in less 
 than a month! " 
 
 Emily's face clouded at the suggestion of 
 another vessel rescuing them. Paul laughed. 
 
 " You may not understand, but I wish we 
 might sail the Daphne into our own home port. 
 Think what a prize it would mean to you." 
 
 A hope lived in his heart for an instant that 
 this might come true. It was gone when he an- 
 swered her. 
 
 " The first vessel that comes along we go 
 in her, lassie; and leave the Daphne to the sea." 
 
 Yet as Emily lay down in the lounge a little 
 while later and saw Paul hang a light of dis- 
 tress in the mizzen rigging, the strange wish 
 that it would go unseen was uppermost in her 
 heart. She wanted the Daphne to remain his, 
 but she would not admit to herself the reason 
 upon which that hope was predicated. 
 
 273
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 WITH the first streak of day Paul was on 
 deck. The blow-off of the donkey, which he 
 had set at a low pressure a couple of hours 
 before, roused him from the berth he had 
 stretched along the carpenter's bench. Custom 
 trains seafarers as it does soldiers on campaign 
 to live by a broken sleep which the average 
 workaday citizen thinks would kill him. Al- 
 though Paul had been up at intervals during the 
 night, with an eye for the weather and any 
 chance lights, he was filled with an eager fresh- 
 ness. A stirring was coming out of the north- 
 west. There was a tang in it which promised 
 a whole sail breeze. It put a song in his heart, 
 and a little while later Emily was awakened by 
 his clear voice ringing through the morning 
 air, " The Chanty of the Rio Grande." 
 
 " 'Where are you going to, my pretty maid? 
 
 away Rio! 
 
 Where are you going to, my pretty maid? 
 We are bou nd to the Rio Grande. 
 away Rio, 
 away Rio, 
 
 Ofare you well, my bonny young girl, 
 We are bound to the Rio Grande.'" 
 
 274
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 When Emily got forward to the galley she 
 found breakfast waiting. 
 
 " Why didn't you call me, Paul? " she asked 
 in a tone of protest, and she waited archly in 
 expectancy of a kiss, but he did not seem to 
 notice this. " Partners must play fair." 
 
 " Never mind, Emily. I can do so little for 
 you. From now on it will be watch and watch 
 and there will not be much that I can do for 
 you." 
 
 The bending of a new fore upper topsail and 
 straightening out the tangle of running gear 
 about decks occupied most of the forenoon. It 
 was not until after luncheon that the Daphne, 
 with Emily at the wheel, lifted away to 
 the eastward before a fresh northwesterly 
 breeze. 
 
 Paul ran aft as the bark entered upon her 
 task and stood for a moment beside Emily. The 
 intoxication which she had first experienced 
 alone at the wheel was again upon her. The 
 breeze was dusting loose wisps of her hair into 
 a halo which the sun burnished with fire. 
 Bosom heaving, eyes alight, her whole virgin 
 being alive, a-thrill with love and the sensation 
 of the Daphne's motion, she presented a figure 
 which would have given fame to any brush that 
 could have limned it. She might have been 
 
 275
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Daphne herself, not fleeing from, but hastening 
 with her fresh treasures to meet Apollo. 
 
 Paul felt that he dare not speak. He put his 
 hand on the wheel to, haul the bark half a point 
 closer to the wind. As he drew it away Emily 
 touched it impulsively. 
 
 " Good strong, honest man's hand," she mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Their eyes met in a flash in which her soul 
 called to his and trembled when echo only 
 seemed to answer it. 
 
 Paul turned abruptly away to stray the 
 patent log over the taffrail. Then he went for- 
 ward in silence. When he found himself a few 
 minutes later staring out over the weather bow 
 he wondered how he had gotten there. And the 
 gold woman, watching him until he disappeared, 
 kissed the wheel spoke his hand had touched 
 and even again in the sweet agony of her love 
 when she saw that it was flecked with the blood 
 of his storm travail. 
 
 That evening Paul established the rule by 
 which he thought it best to work the ship. 
 Emily would stand a watch and trick at the 
 wheel of two hours and have three hours below. 
 His watch would be three on deck and two 
 below. 
 276
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " It isn't fair, Paul," the gold woman pro- 
 tested when he explained it to her. 
 
 "It is fair, Emily. I wish I might spare 
 you every bit of the coarse hard things you have 
 to do." 
 
 " That's just it. You are always thinking of 
 sparing me." 
 
 " Take your orders or go to your room," he 
 said with a pretended seriousness. Emily 
 started with a gasp. Her thoughts leaped to 
 McGovern's story of what had happened on the 
 bridge of the Yakut at. This was what Graham 
 had said to Paul that fateful night. 
 
 " I I will take my orders," she answered 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " Why, dear, what is the matter? I didn't 
 mean to frighten you. I'm a ruffian. Bo for- 
 give me. ' ' 
 
 ' ' No, you should forgive me. I had no right 
 to question what you said. You know best." 
 
 She drew in beside him on the lee side of the 
 wheel. 
 
 " I've been away from civilization so long 
 that I imagine that I've forgotten how to speak 
 decently to white folk." 
 
 " Then I should like to send ever so many 
 men that I know at home where you have been." 
 
 1 1 Bravo ! But ' ever so many men ' I " 
 
 277
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ' Well, they wear trousers." 
 " You are cynical." 
 
 11 No, observant." 
 
 "I'm afraid you are a new woman." 
 
 " I am. I have just been reborn. Oh, Paul, 
 I have never lived until now. I have never 
 known what life meant. I have lived as one 
 blind, incompetent, thoughtless. Like most of 
 those I knew before you came into my life I had 
 just a vague notion that the earth was round. 
 You know the kind." 
 
 " Yes. Take the fiction of civilization away 
 from them and every nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine would perish overnight." 
 
 " I saw them in extremity aboard the Cam- 
 bodia. How many knew one end of a boat from 
 the other? They were all thinking of living, 
 crying to live, and hardly one out of ten knew 
 what to do to save their most precious posses- 
 sion life. ' ' 
 
 " There is a big thought behind what you 
 say." 
 
 * ' You started it in me. ' ' 
 
 Paul looked over his shoulder at the sea. 
 After a considerable silence he said : 
 
 " I wonder how many came through? " 
 
 The question was addressed to the sea as 
 much as it was to Emily. She shuddered. 
 278
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " Here! " he exclaimed brusquely. " What 
 are we doing? There is Polaris up there smil- 
 ing at you, my lady. ' ' 
 
 His face was lit with a wonderful smile as he 
 spoke. It drove the gloom from her mind which 
 their reference to the Cambodia had produced. 
 Soon they were off on an expedition to the 
 stars, each in turn naming one and identifying 
 its bearings. Paul had introduced Emily to this 
 * ' game ' ' the second night on the island, and 
 then as now they lost themselves in it in a 
 childish delight. His mental equipment was 
 forever startling the gold woman. Where he 
 had found the time to garner the store of knowl- 
 edge that was his and to keep abreast of the 
 times, leading such a life as he had for tern 
 years, was a marvel to her. 
 
 "Ha! Ha! " Paul laughed suddenly as the 
 cabin clock, which he had moved into the lounge, 
 struck two bells. The laugh broke the spell of 
 the stars which held Emily, only to weave her 
 immediately in another. 
 
 '"I have shot back to Paris!"' 
 
 Paul laughed and made a pretense of dusting 
 himself. 
 
 ' ' ' Come pardon me by the last waterspout, 
 Covered with ether, accident of travel! 
 My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs 
 
 279
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Encumbered'by the planets' filaments! 
 Ha! on my doublet! A comet's hair!'" 
 
 As he finished this snatch from Cyrano de 
 Bergerac's sky-traveling tale, Paul pretended 
 to pick a comet's hair from his sleeve. 
 
 " Oh, my beloved ' Cyrano '! ' exclaimed 
 Emily, identifying the lines. " Do go on," and 
 in answer Paul went through the entire scene 
 between Cyrano and De Guiche. 
 
 ' * And I will applaud I will pay you thus, ' ' 
 and the gold woman reached up and kissed the 
 helmsman on brow and lip. 
 
 Thus they both came back from across the 
 world and the four centuries whither the magic 
 of the romantic lines had transported them. 
 
 " Come, Emily, didn't you hear two bells 
 strike? You have let me waste nearly an hour 
 of your watch below. Turn in." 
 
 " It has been an hour of magic." 
 
 She held her mouth up to be kissed. His lips 
 barely touched hers and flashed away, and as 
 she went through the lounge door, he mur- 
 mured, still in the words of his Gascon hero, 
 " * I soon shall reach the moon.' " 
 
 Fifteen days later the gold woman was at 
 the wheel again, having relieved Paul to permit 
 him to make his noon observations. It was a 
 280
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Sunday. She watched him tremulously, and 
 strangely troubled, where he worked at the 
 chart table in the lounge. 
 
 The days that had passed had been those of 
 which sea-singers make their happiest, bravest 
 songs by sunlight azure, cloudless sky, and 
 wind-flecked, gem-shot, purple sea ; by night an 
 ermine-tipped deep, mirroring the star jewels 
 and planet studdings of mystic, violet heavens. 
 Through these halcyon days the Daphne had 
 been winging her way ever eastward; flinging 
 long sea leagues behind under the impulse of 
 a driving, northwesterly wind. It had been as 
 constant as a mother's love; with never a pause 
 the bark had sped as she was speeding now, 
 not as a hand-made fabric of steel and iron and 
 wood and canvas and brass, but like a living, 
 sensate thing into which her maker had breathed 
 a soul. The crispness of Spring was in the air 
 air which whipped the blood like young wine. 
 
 ' ' Only a thousand miles more ! ' ' called Paul 
 suddenly. 
 
 As he spoke Emily saw him rise quickly from 
 the table and come toward her. The mask of 
 joyousness which he wore was but a mask to 
 her. It might have deceived anybody else, but 
 this girl had come to understand him and read 
 him as not even the woman who had borne him 
 
 281
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 could have done. There was a constraint upon 
 him. With each noon's tale of a shortening 
 journey a relentless tide had seemed to carry 
 him further and further away from her. After 
 the first flush of the homeward flight he had 
 sung no more of his sea songs unless she asked 
 him. He had a guard up. A secret fear seemed 
 to be gnawing at his heart. By instinct alone 
 she read that he loved her; not by external 
 signs. 
 
 " This is a smart little packet," Paul went 
 on. ' * Just think of it one thousand nine hun- 
 dred and eighty miles in fifteen days! That's 
 moving with nothing above a crippled mainto'- 
 galluns'l on her! We did eleven knots for a 
 stretch when that puff struck us at dawn this 
 morning." 
 
 " 'She's a saucy wild packet; she's a packet of fame, 
 
 She belongs to New York and the Dreadnaught't her name. ' " 
 
 With this couplet, singing it in her rich voice, 
 as she had learned it from Paul, Emily made 
 her answer. She did it with a bravery and pre- 
 tense of light-heartedness which she was far 
 from feeling. 
 
 11 At this rate we'll not be spending another 
 Sunday aboard the Daphne, partner. Eh? ' 
 
 " No," she said and she kept her eyes 
 282
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 averted as he took the wheel from her. She 
 looked out over the lee rail and across the sea. 
 Just over the end of the spanker boom, where 
 it wheeled low down on the southwestern 
 horizon, a white glint fixed her gaze. For a 
 second she thought it was a large bird. Guiltily 
 she held her breath as she discovered it to be 
 a sail. She closed her eyes and afterwards she 
 believed that in that moment she had prayed 
 that Paul might not see it. But he had followed 
 her gaze. Her heart went cold as she heard 
 him cry : * ' Sail ho ! " 
 
 A second later the Daphne was shaking in 
 the wind. 
 
 " Here, Emily, take the wheel! Keep her 
 shaking just as she is! " 
 
 Paul drew Emily to the wheel as he spoke 
 and ran to the rail. 
 
 " It's a ship ! Those are her sky s 'Is or royals 
 we can see! She's bound this way! " 
 
 Emily's hands faltered. The wheel rolled 
 through them. The Daphne clawed up in the 
 wind until she was nearly aback forward. 
 
 * ' Hard up ! Hard up ! " cried Paul in alarm. 
 
 Blindly Emily recovered herself and put the 
 helm up. The Daphne fell off before the wind 
 and her skipper turned again to the strange 
 sail. 
 
 283
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " No," he said. " She's outward bound 
 going the other way. We could never overtake 
 her." He took the wheel again. " Better look 
 at her, partner. It's a full-rigged ship. Not 
 many of 'em left. Pretty soon the sea will 
 know them no more. They'll be gone like 
 like the dreams of yesterday." 
 
 In a few minutes the outward-bounder dipped 
 out of sight, but even before she went a mist had 
 shut her from Emily's vision. " Dreams of 
 yesterday," her thoughts kept repeating. 
 
 Although the Daphne had been lying along in 
 a beaten track of vessels for more than two 
 weeks, this was the first sail to be sighted from 
 her decks the first vessel to come within her 
 ken since the four-master with the painted ports 
 had " arrived out." 
 
 " Don't feel badly, Emily," Paul said as the 
 gold woman faced him. * ' Any hour may bring 
 us up with a homeward-bounder. ' ' 
 
 " I do not feel badly," she answered, and her 
 pride helped her mask her feelings. " But if 
 we are going to be home by next Sunday we 
 are going to have one more * picnic.' " 
 
 With that she went forward to the galley. 
 The preceding Sunday she had prepared a 
 luncheon for both of them and they had eaten it 
 at the wheel together. They had prepared for 
 284
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 it a day ahead, talking childish make-believes of 
 what they would wear and of the good things 
 they would have to eat. Paul had stolen the 
 time to shave. Emily had found a bit of pink 
 ribbon and put it in her hair. This had been 
 their change of apparel. Such a meal as the 
 cheap, sea-sour provisions of the Dap}vne af- 
 forded had been the ' ' picnic ' ' luncheon of their 
 fiction. 
 
 But Saturday of this week had slipped by 
 and neither had spoken of a repetition. Emily 
 had waited for Paul to say something. He had 
 waited for her. Yet now he noted as she went 
 forward that there was a bit of ribbon in her 
 hair. And she had observed that morning when 
 he had come on deck to relieve her at 10 o'clock 
 that he was freshly shaven. 
 
 Of a sudden Emily paused in the midst of 
 her " picnic " preparations, her mind stumbling 
 upon the strangest thought that had yet come 
 to her of Paul's inexplicable mood. 
 
 " Can there be another woman in his life? ' 
 whispered this thought. 
 
 Instantly there came to her mind the night 
 on the Isle of Hope when she had heard him 
 murmur in unconsciousness of a woman to whom 
 he would soon come home. 
 
 285
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 She remembered that she had even prayed 
 for this woman. 
 
 " Cherchez la femme." Nothing was truer 
 than that. Always the woman. Her thoughts 
 went wild. They began picturing the sort of 
 woman who might have come into his life and 
 who might be coming back into it. No; she 
 would never come back into it, for if she had 
 let him go when the blow fell, he was not the 
 kind to let her back. Still love moved men in 
 strange ways. 
 
 It was a sorry picnic that was spread on the 
 Daphne's deck. It came to an end at 2 o'clock 
 when Paul turned the wheel over to Emily and 
 started forward with the dishes they had used. 
 
 " I think I shall break out some coal for the 
 donkey," he announced. 
 
 " But it's Sunday, you know," said Emily, 
 making a brave effort to smile. There was an 
 invitation in her glance for him to remain, but 
 he would not see it. 
 
 11 And you've forgotten your sailor's litany," 
 he answered : 
 
 " ' Six days shalt thou work, doing all that 
 thou art able ; and on the seventh, holystone the 
 decks and stow away the cable. ' ' 
 
 He smiled as he quoted the sea-grimed lines 
 which the first shell back on the Ark must have 
 286
 
 /The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 turned. Then slowly lie put down the dishes 
 and irresistibly a powerful magnet might 
 have been controlling him he was drawn aft to 
 the gold woman. He took her face between his 
 hands and kissed her as he had kissed her that 
 day in the lounge. She dropped the wheel and 
 staggered. 
 
 " My lover," she murmured. 
 
 " Darling," he whispered. 
 
 Just as the Daphne was striking aback the 
 madness which was upon Lavelle passed from 
 him and he seized the wheel. As he sent her 
 off before the wind again the back draught of 
 the shaking sails wafted to him a sulphurous 
 odor which chilled the last drop of blood in his 
 veins. 
 
 11 Emily, take the wheel. Keep her full as 
 she is." 
 
 " Paul, dear, what " 
 
 The pallor of death was in his face. Another 
 scent of gaseous warning struck him. 
 
 " My God, we're afire! " he cried and sprang 
 forward. 
 
 287
 
 PAITL ran straight from the poop into the eyes 
 of the Daphne. There the trail of gas led him. 
 It was the coal in the fore hatch that had been 
 exposed and wet. He went below through the 
 chain locker, but only to remain a second. A 
 sulphurous wave of heat drove him on deck, 
 choking for breath. A furnace was back of 
 it. There was no fire to be seen, but this man 
 did not have to see it to know what the blast 
 that repulsed him meant. He knew these Aus- 
 tralian coal cargoes too well. This was not the 
 result of the mutineers' abortive effort to de- 
 stroy the Daphne. This was a fire of spontane- 
 ous combustion. It was deeply seated. These 
 coals had been in the bark more than one hun- 
 dred and sixteen days to his own knowledge, 
 which was drawn from the log and the time 
 since he had boarded her. How long she had 
 lain in Sydney after being loaded there was no 
 way of telling. 
 
 Coals of this kind, laden in hulls like the 
 Daphne's, which were never built for such car- 
 goes, generate gas after a certain period, and 
 unless watched incessantly and ventilated prop- 
 288
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 erly fire is the certain result. The Pacific deeps 
 hold the secret of many a ship brought to her 
 doom through such a lading. 
 
 That night the constant northwesterly sum- 
 moned a new freshness to its drive as if it 
 sensed the Daphne's peril. When Paul relieved 
 Emily at the wheel at seven o'clock she was 
 crying with the pain in her arms. She had been 
 standing there a full five hours. Not since they 
 had been sailing to the eastward had Paul per- 
 mitted her to take a trick beyond two hours. 
 She had to walk up and down the deck swing- 
 ing her arms and flexing her fingers to get the 
 numbness out of them. 
 
 " Emily, I'd suffer any pain to take yours 
 away," Paul said. " I feel like a whipped cur 
 to see you going through all this terror and 
 hardship and to think I can't do anything to 
 put any of it away from you." 
 
 His tenderness flooded her eyes with tears. 
 Strife always brought him close to her. 
 
 " Don't, Paul, please," she said bravely, at- 
 tempting to control her voice. " You will you 
 will have me breaking going to pieces in a 
 moment. ' ' 
 
 She put her hands to her face and leaned 
 against the casing over the steering gear. 
 
 ' ' Emily, I want you to get for 'ard and get a 
 
 289
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 bite to eat and then turn in," he said. "I'm 
 going to try to let you sleep for three hours 
 maybe until midnight. I've everything bat- 
 tened down forward. The fire's all there. Not 
 a sign aft no temperature. It 's this wind and 
 our strength against the beast that's under 
 decks." 
 
 He did not tell her what a beast he knew it 
 to be. 
 
 The morning of the fifth day after the dis- 
 covery of the fire Paul fixed the Daphne's posi- 
 tion one hundred and fifty miles to the south 
 and west of San Francisco. 
 
 " Only another day, partner! Maybe an 
 hour may bring a vessel to us! ' She had just 
 relieved him at the wheel. Through these five 
 days the Daphne had come driving without 
 sighting a sail: unspoken save by the voice of 
 the northwest wind. Once they had seen the 
 black smoke plume of an outward-bound 
 steamer, but it was too far away for the 
 Daphne's signal of distress to be seen. 
 
 Paul seemed to be living by will alone : to be 
 endowed of a force that only death could stay. 
 When he slept the gold woman had no idea. He 
 had relieved her at the wheel every two hours, 
 night and day, but when she was steering she 
 frequently heard him at work in the engine 
 290
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 room. From the very first night he had slept 
 beside that engine, kept its fires alive and a 
 stream of steam flowing into the forehold 
 through a pipe led down through the chain 
 locker. He had explained to her that water on 
 a fire like this would have been of as little use 
 as oil: that gases had to be smothered. 
 
 Emily sensed that a greater danger menaced 
 them than Paul had revealed. This had been 
 suggested to her when on the second day she 
 Jiad seen him finish a raft built of doors and 
 forecastle bunkboards. But she had learned of 
 the storm not to ask questions. What this man 
 chose to tell he would tell. 
 
 Never had he seemed more splendid than as 
 he stood before her this morning telling the 
 Daphne's position, and in the same breath whis- 
 pering again the belief that had come to him 
 the night before that the steam was choking the 
 beast in the hold. Bare-armed, bareheaded, 
 lithe with a thoroughbred's suppleness, he was, 
 in her sight, an urn of the divine fire from which 
 mankind draws its noblest impulses. 
 
 " We'll win through yet, Paul! In justice 
 we must! " she called to him as he went for- 
 ward. 
 
 She saw him come to the galley door a few 
 minutes later with a cup of steaming coffee and, 
 
 291
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 as he ate of a biscuit and drank, lie waved to 
 her. He darted inside and a moment later came 
 running aft with a cup for her. 
 
 " I've had my coffee, dearheart," she said. 
 
 11 Half a dozen cups won't hurt you. I put 
 two spoons of sugar in this sand, save the 
 mark." 
 
 With that he was gone from her again. Emily 
 watched him breaking coal out of a corner of 
 the main hatch for use in the donkey. She 
 smiled as she remembered his commentary on 
 the grimness of stealing coal from one end of 
 the ship to make fire to put out coal already 
 afire in the other end. It was the old, old prin- 
 ciple of fighting fire with fire in a new, weird 
 form. 
 
 Watching her partner drew Emily's atten- 
 tion from the Daphne. A warning slat of the 
 weather leech of the to'galluns'l brought her 
 eyes back to the bark and the compass. She 
 had just succeeded in getting the vessel on 
 her course of northeast again when a roar with 
 a shriek whistling through it came bursting aft. 
 A cloud of steam poured from the engine room 
 door. 
 
 Shrieking Paul's name, Emily paused but a 
 second when no answer came. She became a 
 flame of action. With the quickness of thought 
 292
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 and the instinct of his training guiding her 
 hands, she snapped the wheel into its beckets, 
 let the spanker sheet go by the run and, 
 leaping forward, cast the halyards off their 
 pin. 
 
 Only belching steam answered her cry of Paul. 
 Into it she hurled herself. It flung her back. 
 She became as a tigress at the repulse. She 
 was not to be denied. Instinct brought her to 
 her hands and knees. It told her to go in under 
 the scalding vapor. Just inside the door she 
 found her own and snatched him into the life- 
 giving air. 
 
 When Paul awoke to consciousness fifteen 
 minutes later it was to find the face of the gold 
 woman bending over him. He put up his arms 
 and drew her face down against his hot lips 
 and held it there. 
 
 * ' You, you, ' ' he murmured, and he found the 
 precious lips which had kissed him again and 
 again in his unconsciousness. They answered 
 him as if they would breathe the strength of 
 immortal life into his form. 
 
 ' ' Not even death can take you from me ! ' : 
 she cried, and started up savagely. She might 
 have expected to find the grim specter himself 
 to grapple at her side. 
 
 " Not even death " 
 
 293
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Lavelle sighed and his eyes closed in a seem- 
 ing weariness of pain. His arms fell from her 
 neck. 
 
 11 Oh, God, you mustn't take him from me! 
 You must not! ?: 
 
 It was an appeal, a command, a challenge of 
 defiance. The cry with which she sent it heav- 
 enward pierced above the roar of the steam 
 and the warring sails and hamper above. 
 
 Although this lone woman's extremity was 
 great, yet of her association with Paul Lavelle 
 she had learned to order her wits in the pres- 
 ence of disaster. 
 
 " If the next minute seems to be the last, 
 just keep on fighting hammering ahead," he 
 had said to her so many times. 
 
 She remembered how he had given strych- 
 nine to McGovern to stimulate heart action 
 the oil he had put on the poor fellow's burns. 
 She ran aft and in a drawer in the medicine 
 chest which she looted of bandages and lint 
 she discovered by accident a bottle of brandy. 
 When she returned to Paul he was just opening 
 his eyes again. He shook his head at the liquor 
 when he had taken but a sip of it. 
 
 " Some starch and water," he whispered, 
 11 or glycerine. There's some aft " 
 
 Emily found a bottle of glycerine. A few 
 294
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 minutes after he had swallowed a mouthful of 
 it he nodded that he felt easier. 
 
 " Steam afraid it got inside," he whispered. 
 " Tried remember keep my mouth shut. 
 Steam's bad to swallow. Water injector on 
 the boiler blew out. Hit me somewhere in the 
 middle. Happened all in a second." 
 
 He fainted while Emily was drawing the boot 
 off his left leg which he had indicated hurt him 
 most. The limb was scalded from the knee 
 down. His arms and the backs of his hands, 
 too, were blistered. His face was grimed with 
 ashes and soot, but when Emily washed it she 
 found it free of burn or hurt. The while her 
 loving hands swathed him and soothed his 
 wounds she crooned like a wild thing over its 
 whelp. 
 
 When he revived she was holding his head 
 in her lap just as she had in the Cambodia's 
 boat. His eyelids lifted to her kisses. He put 
 up a hand and touched her cheek and she patted 
 it. He smiled at the reassurance that it was 
 not a dream. Many, many times he had awak- 
 ened to put out his hand like that to touch 
 that face and met only emptiness. 
 
 The jade ring which he had put on Emily's 
 finger drew his glance and held it for a second. 
 
 " ' Man has many reckonings with man, but 
 
 295
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 only one with God,' " he repeated. " ' Only 
 one with God.' " 
 
 The escaping steam by this time had spent 
 its strongest volume. It was now no more than 
 a hiss. The Daphne had fallen off before the 
 wind again and the noise aloft had practically 
 ceased. 
 
 " I feel this is the reckoning, partner," he 
 whispered. 
 
 With a sob she bent and kissed him with all 
 the passion of her being. 
 
 " And for the touch of those lips," Paul went 
 on, " the reckoning cannot be too hard." 
 
 * ' No, no, dearheart No, no ! This is not 
 the reckoning only the beginning of the fu- 
 ture. ' ' 
 
 Paul shook his head. 
 
 " I have thought of the future, but it can't 
 be for me. If things had been different I 
 should have found you though you had been 
 at the ends of the world. And I should have 
 come for you and taken you." A flash of the 
 old conquering spirit lit his eyes. " I should 
 have taken you despite a world against me. It 
 is part of the the reckoning that we should 
 have met; like strange ships on the sea and to 
 have sailed together for this little while. But 
 296
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 it wasn't to be that we were to get home to- 
 gether. And that is right. That is right." 
 
 * ' Paul, Paul, this hopelessness is not like you. 
 You will live! You must live! ' ; 
 
 " But I don't want to live," he answered very 
 calmly. " I am nothing but a worthless, broken 
 thing marked among men. I haven't even a 
 name to give you. I am a pariah man darling. 
 That's " 
 
 " Listen, Paul look up at me so that you 
 will know that it is my soul speaking to you. 
 All that fortune has given me is as nothing to 
 just the glance with which you are looking up 
 at me now. All that I have is yours my soul, 
 my flesh, my blood, my every breath, my life! 
 Had you nowhere to lay your head I would 
 follow you. Had you only rags to cover me I 
 would wear them as robes of state. Had you 
 only a crust from the gutter to share with me 
 it would be a feast. Were the whole world to 
 revile you its scorn would make me proud. I 
 would wear its spittle like jewels. My love 
 would be my crown." 
 
 Emily Granville was burning with the divine 
 fire of a sublime love. Her message to this man, 
 who to her was more than all the earth and its 
 treasures more than life itself, burst from her 
 
 297
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 lips with the passionate rush of a mountain 
 stream seeking the ocean. 
 
 " Can you not understand that my love would 
 be a poor weak, despicable thing if this were 
 not so? That I would not be worthy of my 
 womanhood? " 
 
 She choked back the tears as she asked these 
 questions ; she kissed the face which she pressed 
 against her breast. 
 
 " That you might live I would die with a 
 smile and with but one regret : That it had not 
 been permitted to me to bear a man child like 
 you. 
 
 " But there is a future, Paul. The world will 
 not drive us forth. Life a fine, clean, God- 
 fearing life is waiting for us over there just 
 through the Golden Gate. It is a golden gate 
 which will close out the past forever ar,d 
 ever. ' ' 
 
 ' l It cannot be locked out, dear. ' ' 
 
 " But it can. I can lock it out. The world 
 must listen to me. It must believe me. Justice 
 works in strange ways, but it brought us that 
 poor man out of the sea. I can tell the world 
 his story. He was with you on the Yakutat." 
 
 Paul started and caught her hand. 
 
 " Then, it was not a vagary," he whispered. 
 " That was Driscoll the quartermaster." 
 
 298
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 ' ' He was in the boat with you that night. I 
 don't know what name you knew him by. But 
 he told me what happened the truth. Had he 
 never spoken I should have known the truth. 
 If the world would not listen to you, it will 
 listen to me ! It will take back its lies ! If " 
 
 Emily's voice broke and she lowered her head 
 in the embrace of the wounded arms which en- 
 circled her neck. The pent-up tears of all her 
 travail of spirit since their paths had crossed 
 the tears choked back and fought back 
 through the dark hours of all the weeks that had 
 gone would not be longer stayed. On his 
 breast she poured them, and her one thought 
 was that if death must be her love's victor it 
 would strike them quickly in each other 's arms. 
 
 299
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 " In the Black Ball Line I served my time, 
 
 To me Jwodah. To me hoodah; 
 In the Black Ball Line I served my time, 
 So hurrah for the Black Ball Line! 
 
 "Blow, my butties, blow, 
 For California Of 
 TJiere' 8 plenty of gold, 
 So I've been told, 
 On the banks of the Sacramento! " 
 
 IT was with this familiar capstan chanty, 
 11 The Banks of the Sacramento," ringing into 
 his senses that Paul Lavelle opened his eyes 
 again on conscious life. The chorus rose clear 
 and lusty, following a baritone leader whose 
 tones were like chimes. A strange, sharp voice 
 of command near by suddenly cut into the 
 chorus. 
 
 " Tell that gang of bullies to cut that out 
 and handle that capstan in silence ! Tell 'em to 
 remember we've sick folk aboard here." 
 
 A moment afterward the chanty ceased. 
 
 " Emily, Emily! " Paul called. He believed 
 he shouted, but his voice rose hardly above a 
 whisper. A shadow cut off the morning sun- 
 300
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 light which was streaming through a door at 
 his feet. A film seemed to be over his vision, 
 but he sensed that he was in the Daphne's 
 lounge. Somebody sat down beside him and 
 two strong hands took one of his between them. 
 
 " You God blessed, old pirate, you ' 
 
 Emotion choked the speaker, but Paul Lavelle 
 started at the sound of that voice. It called 
 to him across fourteen years of silence. He 
 looked up dazed at a man built like himself and 
 dressed in the uniform of a United States naval 
 commander. 
 
 " Tommy Tommy Winterton," he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Bet your boots it's Tommy!" came the 
 answer with a bit of a sniffle in it. 
 
 " But where am I? Where " Terror 
 
 seized him. " Emily, Emily! " he called. 
 
 " She's below, Paul, sleeping. She's been 
 up here, sitting where I am, nearly all night." 
 
 " But how- Where " 
 
 ' ' Stow your questions till I get through. I've 
 a lot to tell you." 
 
 Paul subsided with a wondering gaze fixed 
 on the speaker. 
 
 " I've a lot to tell that'll make you want to 
 live; that ought to bring you off your back 
 quicker than you can say Jack Robinson," Win- 
 
 301
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 terton went on. " Yon haven't swallowed any 
 steam you're burned up a bit outside and 
 you're just as good-looking as ever." 
 
 " But where ara I? What has happened? " 
 
 " You're aboard your own bark the Daphne. 
 She's yours by the Lord Harry and I'd like to 
 see anybody take her away from you. We'll 
 be up with the Gate in another three hours. 
 I'm having her mudhooks shackled up now. 
 Along " 
 
 A renewing of the chanty interrupted him. 
 
 ' ' Mr. Yates ! Mr. Yates ! ' ' called Winterton. 
 
 A young ensign appeared in the doorway. 
 
 11 Tell 'em to cut that out! " 
 
 Paul shook his head. 
 
 " Let 'em go on," he asked. " Ask that fel- 
 low with the baritone voice to find a job and 
 give us ' The Maid of Amsterdam.' " 
 
 " Anything his heart desires, Mr. Yates." 
 
 Yates stepped inside with his hand extended 
 toward Paul. 
 
 " I just want to shake hands with you and 
 say I'm proud to do it." 
 
 He lifted the hand which Winterton held and 
 gave it a gentle squeeze through its bandages. 
 He turned and went out quickly. Winterton 
 picked up the hand again and met Paul's won- 
 dering gaze. 
 302
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " That boy meant that," said Winterton. 
 " Why " 
 
 The strain of * ' The Maid of Amsterdam ' ' 
 the most beautiful of all sailor work songs- 
 came aft. 
 
 " That can't stop me," Winterton went on. 
 " We ran afoul of your old packet about 11 
 o'clock yesterday morning, threshing around 
 like a wild ship two ships of the cruiser 
 squadron ; mine and another. The Carolina has 
 gone on in. I'm stretching a hawser over your 
 bows with my ship. Don't you remember any- 
 thing about it? No? I sent Yates and a boat's 
 crew aboard of you. They found you and that 
 glorious girl trying to get aft. You wanted to 
 get to the wheel and you not able to stand. 
 Don't remember it, eh? I reckon you don't. 
 
 " Oh, my boy, that girl and you have had the 
 whole lot of us miserable. We reached Hono- 
 lulu from Callao ten days after the Cambodia 
 went down. Department ordered us to join the 
 search for survivors. Whaler picked up a hun- 
 dred and forty. There was a kid of a quarter- 
 master among 'em he and a chap named Evans 
 he's in the consular service were the heroes 
 of the whole lot. It would take me a week to 
 tell you the things they said about you. They 
 weren't the only ones. To me it was like a poor 
 
 303
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 man finding gold every word they dropped 
 was a chunk of gold. Say, don't mind, if I 
 snivel a little bit. But I'm glad, glad! You 
 under you old 
 
 ' ' My mother Have 
 
 " Got a cable from her at Honolulu. Sent a 
 wireless to her last night. She's waiting for 
 you now in town. Cambodia had no wireless. 
 'Twas a crime. Somebody ought to be hanged." 
 
 Paul nodded assent. 
 
 * ' Well, we combed out to the westward look- 
 ing for you till it was hopeless," Winterton 
 resumed. * ' We had nothing but gale upon gale. 
 We combed through that chain of islands to the 
 nor 'west of the Hawaiians and at Midway we 
 ran on the gang out of this ship. Oh, it isn't 
 a pretty story: They'd made the island after 
 being in the boats ten days. When they set 
 fire to this ship they thought Midway was right 
 aboard of them. None was a navigator. Sec- 
 ond mate a murdering hound named Morgan, 
 who'd been taken aft from the foc'sle, was the 
 ringleader. He killed McGavock, the skipper. 
 The Jap cook killed the mate. Plain hellish- 
 ness was at the back of it; that's all. 
 
 ' ' McGavock had been logging both of them 
 knocked Morgan down one day for giving him 
 back talk. Mate did the same to the cook. The 
 304
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Jap was crazy from opium smoking. After 
 they'd done the killing they fixed the fire and 
 the rest of the crew followed them over the side 
 like rats you know the kind. One of the outfit 
 sort of a third mate and bos'n who'd put up 
 a fight they turned him adrift without water 
 or a bite to eat. Told him to eat the oars if 
 he got hungry; gave him the ocean to drink. 
 Yes, that's the fellow you picked up. Miss 
 Granville told me about it last night. He was 
 with your father at Apia." 
 
 " But what of McGavock 's wife? There was 
 a woman, Tommy." 
 
 " She wasn't aboard. Seems poor McGavock 
 lost his wife died at sea with her little baby, 
 away out to the westward there, a couple of 
 years ago. He kept brooding over it kept the 
 wife's things aboard just as she'd left them. I 
 saw the little ferns down there under the sky- 
 lights yesterday evening. Seems that after 
 crossing the line this voyage McGavock got it 
 into his head to make the position where he'd 
 buried the little woman. He had it marked on 
 the chart with a little red cross. The mutineers 
 stole the chart and they thought the red cross 
 stood for an island. God knows why McGavock 
 steered out there. Maybe he never intended to 
 come away. 
 
 305
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 " The Jap committed suicide at Midway, but 
 he told the whole story before he went out and 
 we have the rest of it from the other swine. 
 The whole outfit's aboard my ship. Something 
 of the poetry of justice in that, eh? A British 
 cruiser's waiting to take them aboard as soon 
 as we get in. Had her by wireless yester- 
 day. 
 
 " But, Paul, it's you I want to talk about 
 and I'll not answer another question till I have 
 my say. When the news of the Cambodia's loss 
 and what you 'd done aboard of her went flash- 
 ing round the world it set the old navy gang's 
 hearts up. But it did more than that : It reached 
 into the conscience of that fellow Graham. He 
 was on his last legs in a hospital in San Fran- 
 cisco. He'd never had a ship since he'd lost 
 the Yakutat just a beachcomber and a bum. A 
 man can't do a dirty thing and stand up after- 
 ward. That's as sure as shooting. Well, with 
 his last breath, Graham tells the truth about the 
 night the Yakutat was lost; said if he'd done 
 what you advised him to do the ship would never 
 have piled up. He took back every lie he ut- 
 tered on the witness stand admitted that he'd 
 ordered you to the boats. He even told how he 
 looked down from the bridge and saw you fight- 
 ing like a iiger to get women and children into 
 306
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 the boats. The San Francisco papers we 
 picked 'em up at Honolulu are full of it. Miss 
 Granville has a lot of them. 
 
 * ' Lord, man Why, Paul, you damned old 
 
 pirate you! The fleet's been collecting a fund 
 one of the newspapers that roasted you the 
 worst is backing it to build you a memorial. 
 Something in bronze. But it isn't going to be 
 bronze. It's going to be silver the damnedest, 
 finest wedding gift a real man ever got." 
 
 Winterton's voice was husky with emotion. 
 His big brown eyes were suspiciously misty. He 
 had to stop. 
 
 " Farallones are abeam, sir," reported Yates, 
 who was in temporary command of the Daphne, 
 coming to the door. 
 
 " Must be getting back to my own ship, Paul. 
 Regulations, you know. But I'll be aboard of 
 you as soon as we get our mudhooks down." 
 
 " Carpenter's mate reports, sir," interrupted 
 the ensign, ' ' that the fire in the f orehold is ex- 
 tinguished. ' ' 
 
 " See that! " exclaimed Winterton. " You 
 beat that, too, you old beggar, even though you 
 did come near blowing yourself to Kingdom 
 Come!" 
 
 At that moment Emily, fresh from sleep and 
 with the wonderful light of love transcendent 
 
 307
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 in her being, came up through the companion- 
 way with the surgeon from Winterton's ship at 
 her heels. 
 
 Sawbones caught Winterton's eye and fol- 
 lowed him out on deck. The lounge door closed 
 softly behind them and Emily Granville and 
 Paul Lavelle were alone. He drew her precious 
 face down to his and printed a kiss of life tri- 
 umphant upon her expectant lips. Neither at- 
 tempted to speak for several minutes. 
 
 The gold woman carried a small black book 
 and she laid it in Paul's hands as she lifted her 
 face from his. 
 
 11 I want you to have this now, my prince, 
 before the world renders you what it will in a 
 few hours. I would have dragged from the 
 world what it is going to give you willingly. 
 I want all that comes to you to come through 
 me. Darling, that is the woman of it. I have 
 kept this a secret from you because I wished to 
 be able to swear that it was not written at your 
 suggestion; that you knew absolutely nothing 
 about it. If I did wrong in keeping it from 
 you you " 
 
 " Why, darling, what is it! ' 
 
 " Can you bear to read? ' 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 ' ' Then begin here, ' ' and she opened the book 
 
 308
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 in the middle for him and this is what Paul 
 Lavelle read : 
 
 " At sea aboard the bark Daphne, March 31, 
 191. 
 
 " In the presence of death and without the 
 solicitation or the knowledge of any person 
 hereinafter named I, Daniel McGovern, some- 
 times called Driscoll, and other names unknown 
 to me, say: I was quartermaster aboard the 
 steamship Yakutat which was wrecked on the 
 California Coast in the month of March the 
 15th 190 , through and by the carelessness of 
 her first officer, William Graham, then acting 
 as captain in the place of her dead commander. 
 I joined the ship at Skagway. The shipping 
 records there will show under what name. On 
 the day preceding the wreck and when we were 
 within thirty-six hours of our destination we 
 encountered a dense fog in which the ship re- 
 mained up to the time she struck. The fog 
 closed in about 10 o'clock at night shortly after 
 I took the wheel. Paul Lavelle, second officer 
 of the Yakutat and ranking next in command to 
 William Graham, was on the bridge. About 
 fifteen minutes afterward Graham came on the 
 bridge. I heard Mr. Lavelle tell a steward to 
 call Graham from the saloon. Lavelle said: 
 
 * We are standing in too near the land. There 
 is a bad current along here.' Graham said: 
 
 * I've had enough of this talk from you. Hold 
 your course. I'm in command here.' He left 
 the bridge. The next night when I went on 
 
 309
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 watch the course was the same that we had 
 been holding for the previous twenty-four hours. 
 This was at midnight. The third officer and 
 the captain, Graham, were on the bridge. Mr. 
 Lavelle was just being relieved. He said to 
 the captain, Graham: ' I advise you to steer at 
 least three points further to the southward.' 
 We were making a course southeast by east. 
 Graham answered: ' Take your orders or go to 
 your room and stay there. Which will it be? ' 
 Mr. Lavelle said: ' I will take my orders.' 
 Other things were said in both theso conversa- 
 tions, but what tl'.-.y were I do not know. I 
 give only the partr; I heard and remember. The 
 ship struck at fifteen minutes before two. The 
 third officer signaled: ' Full speed astern.' If 
 he had signaled * Full speed ahead ' there would 
 have been but few lives lost. There was a 
 ground swell running, but hardly any sea. La- 
 velle came on the bridge first. Then came Gra- 
 ham and the fourth officer. Graham was like 
 a crazy man. He kept saying: i All hands to 
 the boats.' And there were not boats enough 
 aboard for half the ship's company. Mr. La- 
 velle cursed Graham. Graham said: * I order 
 you to your boat.' I followed Mr. Lavelle. We 
 had to fight like wild beasts. There were pis- 
 tols and knives against us at every hand. 
 ' Women and children first; remember. UridfeoH.' 
 That is what Mr. Lavelle said to me. The boats 
 were being let go by the run, some half filed 
 and others with not enough in them to man 
 them. We gathered all the women and children 
 
 310
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 we could see. The last we let in was an old 
 gentleman who had been sick all the passage, 
 and his wife. I lifted him in. Mr. Lavelle 
 lifted the wife. One would not go without the 
 other. Then the lights went out. When we 
 cleared the side Lavelle started to climb the 
 boat fall again to go back to the ship. I pulled 
 him back. He was too brave a man to let 
 commit suicide. He had absolutely no thought 
 of himself. I have followed the sea forty-five 
 years and I know brave men. I saw Paul La- 
 velle 's father die at Apia. Nobody was driven 
 from our boat but men. We gave their places 
 to women and children. We did not beat any- 
 body with oars. When we cleared the ship a 
 negro I had knocked him overboard myself 
 grabbed the gunwale of the boat. We could 
 not take him in. Mr. Lavelle struck at him 
 with an oar. Somebody stood up in the boat 
 and the next second we were all gone. I did 
 not remember what happened until one year 
 ago. The minister at the Bethel in Hong Kong 
 can tell you about that. The doctors there 
 know, too. While I was on the Yakutat I did 
 not know who Paul Lavelle was. 
 
 HIS 
 
 " DANIEL X McGovERN. 
 ' ' Witness : MARK 
 
 " EMILY GEANVILLE." 
 
 "Oh, you wonderful, wonderful woman!' 1 
 cried Paul as he finished this amazing document 
 and crushed Emily to him. 
 
 311
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 Contrition filled him as he remembered the 
 picture of her standing beside the derelict's 
 berth swearing him to the truth of his state- 
 ment. He started to speak, but a hand over 
 his mouth stopped him. The gold woman could 
 read his thoughts. 
 
 " I should have answered you when you called 
 me that night, Paul," she said, " but if I had 
 done so I should not have been able to get the 
 poor old fellow to make his mark. I had fought 
 death from taking him until I could put in 
 writing what he said. You ' 
 
 She did not finish, for he drew her cheek down 
 against his. 
 
 Two hours later Paul Lavelle and Emily 
 Granville sailed through the Golden Gate the 
 golden gate of the future which she had prom- 
 ised him. 
 
 The noble sea way was shimmering in the 
 sunlight of a flawless Spring day. As the 
 Daphne came under the lee of the green-clad 
 Marin hills the northwest wind, which had been 
 her constant champion, withdrew like a courtier 
 who has seen his lady to the threshold of her 
 home. 
 
 " To live and to love! " exclaimed Paul, in- 
 haling a deep breath of the crisp, sparkling air 
 312
 
 The Girl of the Golden Gate 
 
 where lie had been carried from the lounge to 
 a chair against the taffrail. 
 
 " To love and to live," whispered Emily, 
 pressing the hand which she held in hers against 
 her heart. " Isn't life beautiful? " 
 
 " We are but coming through its gate, dar- 
 ling," he answered. 
 
 THE END 
 
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