"Ain't you no regard for a family man? I got a wife and kids dependent on me."

"Well, do what Karl Marx did--let them starve or live on their own money while you prove that capital is as he said, 'a vampire of dead labor sucking the life out of living labor.' Or feed them on the wind you try to sell me."

"Aw, have a heart! I talk too much, but I'm all right," Jake pleaded.

Davidge relented a little. "If you'll promise to give your mouth a holiday and your hands a little work I'll keep you to the end of the month. And then, on your way!"

"All right, boss; much obliged," said Jake, so relieved at his respite that he bustled away as if victorious, winking shrewdly at Mamise--who winked back, with some difficulty.

She waited till he was a short distance off, then she murmured, quickly:

"Don't jump--but Nicky Easton is coming here in the next few days; I don't know just when. He told Jake; Jake told me. What shall we do?"

Davidge took the blow with a smile:

"Our little guest is coming at last, eh? He promised to see you first.

I'll have Larrey keep close to you, and the first move he makes we'll jump him. In the mean while I'll put some new guards on the job and--well, that's about all we can do but wait."

"I mustn't be seen speaking to you too friendly. Jake thinks I'm fooling you."

"G.o.d help me, if you are, for I love you. And I want you to be careful. Don't run any risks. I'd rather have the whole shipyard smashed than your little finger."

"Thanks, but if I could swap my life for one ship it would be the best bargain I ever bought. Good-by."

As she ran back to her post Davidge smiled at the womanishness of her gait, and thought of Joan of Arc, never so lovably feminine as in her armor.

CHAPTER V

Days of harrowing restiveness followed, Mamise starting at every word spoken to her, leaping to her feet at every step that pa.s.sed her cottage, springing from her sleep with a cry, "Who's there!" at every breeze that fumbled a shutter.

But nothing happened; n.o.body came for her.

The afternoon of the Liberty Loan drive was declared a half-holiday.

The guards were doubled at the gates, and watchmen moved among the crowds; but strangers were admitted if they looked plausible, and several motor-loads of them rolled in. Some of them carried bundles of circulars and posters and application blanks. Some of them were of foreign aspect, since a large number of the workmen had to be addressed in other languages than English.

Mamise drifted from one audience to another. She encountered her team-mate Pafflow and tried to find a speaker who was using his language.

At length a voice of an intonation familiar to him threw him into an ecstasy. What was jargon to Mamise was native music to him, and she lingered at his elbow, pretending to share his thrill in order to increase it.

She felt a twitch at her sleeve, and turned idly.

Nicky Easton was at her side. Her mind, all her minds, began to convene in alarm like the crew of a ship attacked.

"Nicky!" she gasped.

"No names, plea.s.s! But to follow me quick."

"I'm right with you." She turned to follow him. "One minute." She stepped back and spoke fiercely to Pafflow. "Pafflow, find Mr.

Davidge. Tell him Nicky is here. Remember, _Nicky is here_. It's life and death. Find him."

Pafflow mumbled, "Nicky is here!" and Mamise ran after Nicky, who was lugging a large suit-case. He was quivering with excitement.

"I didn't knew you in pentaloons, but Chake Nuttle pointet you owit,"

he laughed.

"Wh-where is Jake?"

"He goes ahead vit a boondle of bombs. n.o.body is on the _Schiff_. Ve could not have so good a chence again."

Mamise might have, ought to have, seized him and cried for help; but she could not somehow throw off the character she had a.s.sumed with Nicky. She obeyed him in a kind of automatism. Her eyes searched the crowd for Larrey, who had kept all too close to her of recent days and nights. But he had fallen under the hypnotism of some too eloquent spellbinder.

Mamise felt the need of doing a great heroic feat, but she could not imagine what it might be. Pending the arrival from heaven of some superfeminine inspiration, she simply went along to be in at the death.

Pafflow was a bit stupid and two bits stubborn. He puzzled over Mamise's peculiar orders. He wanted to hear the rest of that fiery speech. He turned and stared after Mamise and noted the way she went, with the foppish stranger carrying the heavy baggage. But he was used to obeying orders after a little balking, and in time his slow brain started him on the hunt for Davidge. He quickened his pace and asked questions, being put off or directed hither and yon.

At last he saw the boss sitting on a platform behind whose fluttering bunting a white-haired man was hurling noises at the upturned faces of the throng. Pafflow supposed that his jargon was English.

Getting to Davidge was not easy. But Pafflow was stubborn. He pushed as close to the front as he could, and there a wall of bodies held him.

The orator was checked in full career with almost fatal results by the sudden bellowing of a voice from the crowd below. He supposed that he was being heckled. He paused among the ruins of his favorite period, and said:

"Well, my friend, what is it?"

Pafflow ignored him and shouted: "Meesta Davutch! O-o-h, Meesta Davutch. Neecky is here."

Davidge, hearing his name bruited, rose and called into the mob, "What's that?"

"Neecky is here."

When Davidge understood he was staggered. For a moment he stood in a stupor. Then he apologized to the speaker. "An emergency call. Please forgive me and go right on!"

He bowed to the other distinguished guests and left the platform.

Pafflow found him and explained.

"Moll, the pa.s.ser-boy, my gang, she say find you, life and death, and say Neecky is here! I doan' know what she means, but now I find you."

"Which way--where--did you--have you an idea where she went?"

"She go over by new ship _Mamise_--weeth gentleman all dressy up."

Davidge ran toward the scaffolding surrounding the almost finished hull. He recognized one or two of his plain-clothes guards and stopped just long enough to tell them to get together and search every ship at once, and to make no excitement about it.

The scaffolding was like a jungle, and he prowled through it with caution and desperate speed, up and down the swaying, cleated planks and in and out of the hull.