ever exchanged letters. Yet even so there had been a bond between them
which had never broken. And now Hank had dropped out.
Kirk began to think about death. As with most men of his temperament,
it was a subject on which his mind had seldom dwelt, never for any
length of time. His parents had died when he was too young to
understand; and circumstances had shielded him from the shadow of the
great mystery. Birth he understood; it had forced itself into the
scheme of his life; but death till now had been a stranger to him.
The realization of it affected him oddly. In a sense, he found it
stimulating; not stimulating as birth had been, but more subtly. He
could recall vividly the thrill that had come to him with the birth of
his son. For days he had walked as one in a trance. The world had
seemed unreal, like an opium-smoker's dream. There had been magic
everywhere.
But death had exactly the opposite effect. It made everything curiously
real, himself most of all. He had the sensation, as he thought of Hank,
of knowing himself for the first time. Somehow he felt strengthened,
braced for the fight, as a soldier might who sees his comrade fall at
his side.
There was something almost vindictive in the feeling that came to him.
It was too vague to be analysed, but it filled him with a desire to
fight, gave him a sense of determination of which he had never before
been conscious. It toughened him, and made the old, easy-going Kirk
Winfield seem a stranger at whom he could look with detachment and a
certain contempt.
As he walked back along the deck the battlements of the city met his
gaze once more. But now they seemed less formidable.
In the leisurely fashion of the home-coming ship the Santa
Barbara slid into her dock. The gangplank was thrust out. Kirk
walked ashore.
For a moment he thought that Ruth had not come to meet him. Then his
heart leaped madly. He had seen her.
* * * * *
There are worse spots in the world than the sheds of the New York
customs, but few more desolate; yet to Kirk just then the shadowy
vastness seemed a sunlit garden. A flame of happiness blazed up in his
mind, blotting out in an instant the forebodings which had lurked there
like evil creatures in a dark vault. The future, with its explanations
and plans, could take care of itself. Ruth was a thing of the present.
He put his arms round her and held her. The friendly drummer, who
chanced to be near, observed them with interest and a good deal of
pleasure. The third officer's story had temporarily destroyed his
feeling that all was right with the world, and his sympathetic heart
welcomed this evidence that life held compensations even for men who
had been swindled out of valuable gold-mines.
'I guess he's not feeling so worse, after all,' he mused, and went on
his way with an easy mind to be fawned upon by his grateful firm.
Ruth was holding Kirk at arm's length, her eyes full of tears at the
sight.
