Fate Knocks at the Door | Page 5

friend--the only other
white man left. The two mates and boatswain had tried out the first two
boats--eagerly.
Bedient ran to the wheel, tore the Captain from it and carried him in his
arms toward the stern. A Chinese tried to knife him, but the man died,
as if struck by a flying bit of tackle. Bedient recaptured the Captain,
who during the brief struggle had dumbly turned back to the wheel. It
was all done in thirty seconds; Carreras was chucked into the stern-seat
of the little boat, where he belonged. The body of a Laskar cushioned
the craft from being broken against the rudder. And now they were
seven.
The Truxton had been broken above and below. She strangled--and was
sucked down. Bedient saw her stern fling high like an arm; saw the big
"X" in the centre of the name in the whitish light.
He remembered hearing that typhoons always double on their tracks;
and that a ship is not done that manages to live through the first charge.

This one never came back. They had five days of thirst and equatorial
sun. Two men died; two fell into madness; Captain Carreras, Andrew
Bedient and a Chinese made Hong Kong without fatal hurt.
Captain and cook took passage for London. The former declared he
was through with the sea, except as a passenger. In twenty-five years he
had never encountered serious accident before; he had believed himself
accident-proof; and learning differently, did not propose to lose a
second ship. He could bring himself to say very little about Bedient's
action of the last moment on deck, but he asked the young man to share
his fortunes. Captain Carreras intended to stay for a while at his
mother's house in Surrey, but realized he could not stand that long....
Bedient told him he was not finished with Asia yet. On the day they
parted, the Captain said there would be a letter for Bedient, on or before
July first of every year, sent care the "_Marigold, New York_."... The
old embarrassment intervened at the last moment--but the younger man
did not miss the Captain's heart-break.

SECOND

CHAPTER
THE PACK-TRAIN IN LUZON
The first letter from Captain Carreras was a real experience for Bedient.
Hours were needed to adjust the memories of his timid old friend to
this flowing and affectionate expression. Captain Carreras, shut in a
room with pen and white paper, loosed his pent soul in utterance. A
fine fragrant soul it was, and all its best poured out to his memorable
boy.
The letter had been written in England, of which the Captain was
already weary. He must have more space about, he confessed; and
although he did not intend to break his pledge on the matter of
navigating, he was soon to book a passage for the Americas. He
imagined there was the proper sort of island for him somewhere in
those waters. He had always had a weakness for "natives and hot
weather." Bedient was asked to make his need known in any case of

misfortune or extremity. This was the point of the first letter, and of all
the letters....
At length Captain Carreras settled in Equatoria, a big island well out of
travel-lines in the Caribbean. The second and third letters made it even
plainer that the old heart valves ached for the young man's coming. A
mysterious binding of the two seems to have taken place in the months
preceding the day of the great wind; and in that instant of stress and
fury the Captain realized his supreme human relationship. It grew
strong as only can a bachelor's love for a man. Indeed, Carreras was
probably the first to discover in Andrew Bedient a something different,
which Bedient himself was yet far from realizing.... The latter wished
that the letters from the West Indies would not always revert to the
strength of his hands. It brought up a memory of the despoiled face of
the Chinese with the knife, and of the inert figure afterward on the
planking.... Bedient knew that sometime he would go to find his friend.
Three years after the great wind, the excitement in Manila called
Bedient across the China Sea. There had been a coup of the American
fleet, and soldiers from the States were on the way to the Islands.... In
the following weeks, there was much to do and observe around that low
large city of Luzon, the lights of which Andrew had seen many times at
night from the harbor and the passage--lights which seemed to lie upon
still waters. When Pack-train Thirteen finally took the field from the
big corral, to carry grub and ammunition to the moving forces and the
few outstanding garrisons, Bedient had already been tried out and
found