Kitabı oku: «The Pagan Madonna», sayfa 5
CHAPTER IX
“If you will write the order I will execute it at once. The consulate closes early.”
“I’ll write it, but how will I get it to you? The door closes below the sill.”
“When you are ready, call, and I will open the door a little.”
“It would be better if you opened it full wide. This is China – I understand that. But we are both Americans, and there’s a good sound law covering an act like this.”
“But it does not reach as far as China. Besides, I have an asset back in the States. It is my word. I have never broken it to any man or woman, and I expect I never shall. You have, or have had, what I consider my property. You have hedged the question; you haven’t been frank.”
The son listened intently.
“I bought that string of glass beads in good faith of a Chinaman – Ling Foo. I consider them mine – that is, if they are still in my possession. Between the hour I met you last night and the moment of Captain Dennison’s entrance to my room considerable time had elapsed.”
“Sufficient for a rogue like Cunningham to make good use of,” supplemented the prisoner in Cabin Two. “There’s a way of finding out the facts.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. You used to carry a planchette that once belonged to the actress Rachel. Why not give it a whirl? Everybody’s doing it.”
Cleigh eyed Cabin Four, then Cabin Two, and shook his head slightly, dubiously. He was not getting on well. To come into contact with a strong will was always acceptable; and a strong will in a woman was a novelty. All at once it struck him forcibly that he stood on the edge of boredom; that the lure which had brought him fully sixteen thousand miles was losing its bite. Was he growing old, drying up?
“Will you tell me what it is about these beads that makes you offer ten thousand for them? Glass – anybody could see that. What makes them as valuable as pearls?”
“They are love beads,” answered Cleigh, mockingly. “They are far more potent than powdered pearls. You have worn them about your throat, Miss Norman, and the sequence is inevitable.”
“Nonsense!” cried Jane.
Dennison added his mite to the confusion:
“I thought that scoundrel Cunningham was lying. He said the string was a code key belonging to the British Intelligence Office.”
“Rot!” Cleigh exploded.
“So I thought.”
“But hurry, Miss Norman. The sooner I have that written order on the consulate the sooner you’ll have your belongings.”
“Very well.”
Five minutes later she announced that the order was completed, and Cleigh opened the door slightly.
“The key will be given you the moment we weigh anchor.”
“I say,” called the son, “you might drop into the Palace and get my truck, too. I’m particular about my toothbrushes.” A pause. “I’d like a drink, too – if you’ve got the time.”
Cleigh did not answer, but he presently entered Cabin Two, filled a glass with water, raised his son’s head to a proper angle, and gave him drink.
“Thanks. This business strikes me as the funniest thing I ever heard of! You would have done that for a dog.”
Cleigh replaced the water carafe in the rack above the wash bowl and went out, locking the door. In the salon he called for Dodge:
“I am going into town. I’ll be back round five. Don’t stir from this cabin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You remember that fellow who was here night before last?”
“The good-looking chap that limped?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m to crease him if he pokes his noodle down the stairs?”
“Exactly! No talk, no palaver! If he starts talking he’ll talk you out of your boots. Shoot!”
“In the leg? All right.”
His employer having gone, Dodge sat in a corner from which he could see the companionway and all the passages. He lit a long black cigar, laid his formidable revolver on a knee, and began his vigil. A queer job for an old cow-punch, for a fact.
To guard an old carpet that didn’t have “welcome” on it anywhere – he couldn’t get that, none whatever. But there was a hundred a week, the best grub pile in the world, and the old man’s Havanas as often as he pleased. Pretty soft!
And he had learned a new trick – shooting target in a rolling sea. He had wasted a hundred rounds before getting the hang of it. Maybe these sailors hadn’t gone pop-eyed when they saw him pumping lead into the bull’s-eye six times running? Tin cans and raw potatoes in the water, too. Something to brag about if he ever got back home.
He broke the gun and inspected the cylinder. There wasn’t as much grease on the cartridges as he would have liked.
“Miss Norman?” called Dennison.
“What is it?”
“Are you comfortable?”
“Oh, I’m all right. I’m only furious with rage, that’s all. You are still tied?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I really don’t understand your father.”
“I have never understood him. Yet he was very kind to me when I was little. I don’t suppose there is anything in heaven or on earth that he’s afraid of.”
“He is afraid of me.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I know it. He would give anything to be rid of me. But go on.”
“With what?”
“Your past.”
“Well, I’m something like him physically. We are both so strong that we generally burst through rather than take the trouble to go round. I’m honestly sorry for him. Not a human being to love or be loved by. He never had a dog. I don’t recollect my mother; she died when I was three; and that death had something to do with the iron in his soul. Our old butler used to tell me that Father cursed horribly, I mean blasphemously, when they took the mother out of the house. There are some men like that, who love terribly, away and beyond the average human ability. After the mother died he plunged into the money game. He was always making it, piling it up ruthlessly but honestly. Then that craving petered out, and he took a hand in the collecting game. What will come next I don’t know. As a boy I was always afraid of him. He was kind to me, but in the abstract. I was like an extra on the grocer’s bill. He put me into the hands of a tutor – a lovable old dreamer – and paid no more attention to me. He never put his arms round me and told me fairy stories.”
“Poor little boy! No fairy stories!”
“Nary a one until I began to have playmates.”
“Do the ropes hurt?”
“They might if I were alone.”
“What do you make of the beads?”
“Only that they have some strange value, or father wouldn’t be after them. Love beads! Doesn’t sound half so plausible as Cunningham’s version.”
“That handsome man who limped?”
“Yes.”
“A real adventurer – the sort one reads about!”
“And the queer thing about him, he keeps his word, too, for all his business is a shady one. I don’t suppose there is a painting or a jewel or a book of the priceless sort that he doesn’t know about, where it is and if it can be got at. Some of his deals are aboveboard, but many of them aren’t. I’ll wager these beads have a story of loot.”
“What he steals doesn’t hurt the poor.”
“So long as the tigers fight among themselves and leave the goats alone, it doesn’t stir you. Is that it?”
“Possibly.”
“And besides, he’s a handsome beggar, if there ever was one.”
“He has the face of an angel!”
“And the soul of a vandal!” – with a touch of irritability.
“Now you aren’t fair. A vandal destroys things; this man only transfers – ”
“For a handsome monetary consideration – ”
“Only transfers a picture from one gallery to another.”
“Well, we’ve seen the last of him for a while, anyhow.”
“I wonder.”
“Will you answer me a question?”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you know where those beads are?”
“A little while gone I smelt tobacco smoke,” she answered, dryly.
“I see. We’ll talk of something else then. Have you ever been in love?”
“Have you?”
“Violently – so I believed.”
“But you got over it?”
“Absolutely! And you?”
“Oh, I haven’t had the time. I’ve been too busy earning bread and butter. What was she like?”
“A beautiful mirage – the lie in the desert, you might say. Has it ever occurred to you that the mirage is the one lie Nature utters?”
“I hadn’t thought. She deceived you?”
“Yes.”
A short duration of silence.
“Doesn’t hurt to talk about her?”
“Lord, no! Because I wasn’t given fairy stories when I was little, I took them seriously when I was twenty-three.”
“Puppy love.”
“It went a little deeper than that.”
“But you don’t hate women?”
“No. I never hated the woman who deceived me. I was terribly sorry for her.”
“For having lost so nice a husband?” – with a bit of malice.
He greeted this with laughter.
“It is written,” she observed, “that we must play the fool sometime or other.”
“Have you ever played it?”
“Not yet, but you never can tell.”
“Jane, you’re a brick!”
“Jane!” she repeated. “Well, I don’t suppose there’s any harm in your calling me that, with partitions in between.”
“They used to call me Denny.”
“And you want me to call you that?”
“Will you?”
“I’ll think it over – Denny!”
They laughed. Both recognized the basic fact in this running patter. Each was trying to buck up the other. Jane was honestly worried. She could not say what it was that worried her, but there was a strong leaven in her of old-wives’ prescience. It wasn’t due to this high-handed adventure of Cleigh, senior; it was something leaning down darkly from the future that worried her. That hand mirror!
“Better not talk any more,” she advised. “You’ll be getting thirsty.”
“I’m already that.”
“You’re a brave man, captain,” she said, her tone altering from gayety to seriousness. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve always been able to take care of myself, though I’ve never been confronted with this kind of a situation before. Frankly, I don’t like it. But I suspect that your father will have more respect for us if we laugh at him. Has he a sense of humour?”
“My word for it, he has! What could be more humorous than tying me up in this fashion and putting me in the cabin that used to be mine? Ten thousand for a string of glass beads! I say, Jane!”
“What?”
“When he comes back tell him you might consider twenty thousand, just to get an idea what the thing is worth.”
“I’ll promise that.”
“All right. Then I’ll try to snooze a bit. Getting stuffy lying on my back.”
“The brute! If I could only help you!”
“You have – you are – you will!”
He turned on his side, his face toward the door. His arms and legs began to sting with the sensation known as sleep. He was glad his father had overheard the initial conversation. A wave of terror ran over him at the thought of being set ashore while Jane went on. Still he could have sent a British water terrier in hot pursuit.
Jane sat down and took inventory. She knew but little about antiques – rugs and furniture – but she was full of inherent love of the beautiful. The little secretary upon which she had written the order on the consulate was an exquisite lowboy of old mahogany of dull finish. On the floor were camel saddle-bays, Persian in pattern. On the panel over the lowboy was a small painting, a foot broad and a foot and a half long. It was old – she could tell that much. It was a portrait, tender and quaint. She would have gasped had she known that it was worth a cover of solid gold. It was a Holbein, The Younger, for which Cleigh some years gone had paid Cunningham sixteen thousand dollars. Where and how Cunningham had acquired it was not open history.
An hour passed. By and by she rose and tiptoed to the partition. She held her ear against the panel, and as she heard nothing she concluded that Denny – why not? – was asleep. Next she gazed out of the port. It was growing dark outside, overcast. It would rain again probably. A drab sky, a drab shore. She saw a boat filled with those luscious vegetables which wrote typhus for any white person who ate them. A barge went by piled high with paddy bags – rice in the husk – with Chinamen at the forward and stern sweeps. She wondered if these poor yellow people had ever known what it was to play?
Suddenly she fell back, shocked beyond measure. From the direction of the salon – a pistol shot! This was followed by the tramp of hurrying feet. Voices, now sharp, now rumbling – this grew nearer. A struggle of some dimensions was going on in the passage. The racket reached her door, but did not pause there. She sank into the chair, a-tremble.
Dennison struggled to a sitting posture.
“Jane?”
“Yes!”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, what has happened?”
“A bit of mutiny, I take it; but it seems to be over.”
“But the shot!”
“I heard no cry of pain, only a lot of scuffling and some high words. Don’t worry.”
“I won’t. Can’t you break a piece of glass and saw your way out?”
“Lord love you, that’s movie stuff! If I had a razor, I couldn’t manage it without hacking off my hands. You are worried!”
“I’m a woman, Denny. I’m not afraid of your father; but if there is mutiny, with all these treasures on board – and over here – ”
“All right. I’ll make a real effort.”
She could hear him stumbling about. She heard the crash of the water carafe on the floor. Several minutes dragged by.
“Can’t be done!” said Dennison. “Can’t make the broken glass stay put. Can’t reach my ankles, either, or I could get my feet free. There’s a double latch on your door. See to it! Lord!”
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Just hunting round for some cuss words. Put the chair up against the door knob and sit tight for a while.”
The hours dragged by in stifling silence.
Meanwhile, Cleigh, having attended to errands, lunched, had gone to the American consulate and presented the order. His name and reputation cleared away the official red tape. He explained that all the fuss of the night before had been without cause. Miss Norman had come aboard the yacht, and now decided to go to Hong-Kong with the family. This suggested the presence of other women on board. In the end, Jane’s worldly goods were consigned to Cleigh, who signed the receipt and made off for the launch.
It was growing dark. On the way down the river Cleigh made no attempt to search for the beads.
The salon lights snapped up as the launch drew alongside. Once below, Cleigh dumped Jane’s possessions into the nearest chair and turned to give Dodge an order – only to find the accustomed corner vacant!
“Dodge!” he shouted. He ran to the passage. “Dodge, where the devil are you?”
“Did you call, sir?”
Cleigh spun about. In the doorway to the dining salon stood Cunningham, on his amazingly handsome face an expression of anxious solicitude!
CHAPTER X
Cleigh was not only a big and powerful man – he was also courageous, but the absence of Dodge and the presence of Cunningham offered such sinister omen that temporarily he was bereft of his natural wit and initiative.
“Where’s Dodge?” he asked, stupidly.
“Dodge is resting quietly,” answered Cunningham, gravely. “He’ll be on his feet in a day or two.”
That seemed to wake up Cleigh a bit. He drew his automatic.
“Face to the wall, or I’ll send a bullet into you!”
Cunningham shook his head.
“Did you examine the clip this morning? When you carry weapons like that for protection never put it in your pocket without a look-see. Dodge wouldn’t have made your mistake. Shoot! Try it on the floor, or up through the lights – or at me if you’d like that better. The clip is empty.”
Mechanically Cleigh took aim and bore against the trigger. There was no explosion. A depressing sense of unreality rolled over the Wanderer’s owner.
“So you went into town for her luggage? Did you find the beads?”
Cleigh made a negative sign. It was less an answer to Cunningham than an acknowledgment that he could not understand why the bullet clip should be empty.
“It was an easy risk,” explained Cunningham. “You carried the gun, but I doubt you ever looked it over. Having loaded it once upon a time, you believed that was sufficient, eh? Know what I think? The girl has hidden the beads in her hair. Did you search her?”
Again Cleigh shook his head, as much over the situation as over the question.
“What, you ran all this risk and hadn’t the nerve to search her? Well, that’s rich! Unless you’ve read her from my book. She would probably have scratched out your eyes. There’s an Amazon locked up in that graceful body. I’d like to see her head against a bit of clear blue sky – a touch of Henner blues and reds. What a whale of a joke! Abduct a young woman, risk prison, and then afraid to lay hands on her! You poor old piker!” Cunningham laughed.
“Cunningham – ”
“All right, I’ll be merciful. To make a long story short, it means that for the present I am in command of this yacht. I warned you. Will you be sensible, or shall I have to lock you up like your two-gun man from Texas?”
“Piracy!” cried Cleigh, coming out of his maze.
“Maritime law calls it that, but it isn’t really. No pannikins of rum, no fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. Parlour stuff, you might call it. The whole affair – the parlour side of it – depends upon whether you purpose to act philosophically under stress or kick up a hullabaloo. In the latter event you may reasonably expect some rough stuff. Truth is, I’m only borrowing the yacht as far as latitude ten degrees and longitude one hundred and ten degrees, off Catwick Island. You carry a boson’s whistle at the end of your watch chain. Blow it!” was the challenge.
“You bid me blow it?”
“Only to convince you how absolutely helpless you are,” said Cunningham, amiably. “Yesterday this day’s madness did prepare, as our old friend Omar used to say. Vedder did great work on that, didn’t he? Toot the whistle, for shortly we shall weigh anchor.”
Like a man in a dream, Cleigh got out his whistle. The first blast was feeble and windy. Cunningham grinned.
“Blow it, man, blow it!”
Cleigh set the whistle between his lips and blew a blast that must have been heard half a mile away.
“That’s something like! Now we’ll have results!”
Above, on deck, came the scuffle of hurrying feet, and immediately – as if they had been prepared against this moment – three fourths of the crew came tumbling down the companionway.
“Seize this man!” shouted Cleigh, thunderously, as he indicated Cunningham.
The men, however, fell into line and came to attention. Most of them were grinning.
“Do you hear me? Brown, Jessup, McCarthy – seize this man!”
No one stirred. Cleigh then lost his head. With a growl he sprang toward Cunningham. Half the crew jumped instantly into the gap between, and they were no longer grinning. Cunningham pushed aside the human wall and faced the Wanderer’s owner.
“Do you begin to understand?”
“No! But whatever your game is, it will prove bad business for you in the end. And you men, too. The world has grown mighty small, and you’ll find it hard to hide – unless you kill me and have done with it!”
“Tut, tut! Wouldn’t harm a hair of your head. The world is small, as you say, but just at this moment infernally busy mopping up. What, bother about a little dinkum dinkus like this, with Russia mad, Germany ugly, France grumbling at England, Italy shaking her fist at Greece, and labour making a monkey of itself? Nay! I’ll shift the puzzle so you can read it. When the yacht was released from auxiliary duties she was without a crew. The old crew, that of peace times, was gone utterly, with the exception of four. You had the yacht keelhauled, gave her another daub of war paint and set about to find a crew. And I had one especially picked for you! Ordinarily, you’ve a tolerably keen eye. Didn’t it strike you odd to land a crew who talked more or less grammatically, who were clean bodily, who weren’t boozers?”
Cleigh, fully alive now, coldly ran his inspecting glance over the men. He had never before given their faces any particular attention. Besides, this was the first time he had seen so many of them at once. During boat drill they had been divided into four squads. Young faces, lean and hard some of them, but reckless rather than bad. All of them at this moment appeared to be enjoying some huge joke.
“I can only repeat,” said Cleigh, “that you are all playing with dynamite.”
“Perhaps. Most of these boys fought in the war; they played the game; but when they returned nobody had any use for them. I caught them on the rebound, when they were a bit desperate. We formed a company – but of that more anon. Will you be my guest, or will you be my prisoner?”
The velvet fell away from Cunningham’s voice.
“Have I any choice? I’ll accept the condition because I must. But I’ve warned you. I suppose I’d better ask at once what the ransom is.”
“Ransom? Not a copper cent! You can make Singapore in two days from the Catwick.”
“And for helping me into Singapore I’m to agree not to hand such men as you leave me over to the British authorities?”
“All wrong! The men who will help you into Singapore or take you to Manila will be as innocent as newborn babes. Wouldn’t believe it, would you, but I’m one of those efficiency sharks. Nothing left to chance; all cut and dried; pluperfect. Cleigh, I never break my word. I honestly intended turning over those beads to you, but Morrissy muddled the play.”
“Next door to murder.”
“Near enough, but he’ll pull out.”
“Are you going to take Miss Norman along?”
“What, set her ashore to sic the British Navy on us? I’m sorry. I don’t want her on board; but that was your play, not mine. You tried to double-cross me. But you need have no alarm. I will kill the man who touches her. You understand that, boys?”
The crew signified that the order was understood, though one of them – the returned Flint – smiled cynically. If Cunningham noted the smile he made no verbal comment upon it.
“Weigh anchor, then! Look alive! The sooner we nose down to the delta the sooner we’ll have the proper sea room.”
The crew scurried off, and almost at once came familiar sounds – the rattle of the anchor chain on the windlass, the creaking of pulley blocks as the launch came aboard, the thud of feet hither and yon as portables were stowed or lashed to the deck-house rail. For several minutes Cleigh and Cunningham remained speechless and motionless.
“You get all the angles?” asked Cunningham, finally.
“Some of them,” admitted Cleigh.
“At any rate, enough to make you accept a bad situation with good grace?”
“You’re a foolhardy man, Cunningham. Do you expect me to lie down when this play is over? I solemnly swear to you that I’ll spend the rest of my days hunting you down.”
“And I solemnly swear that you shan’t catch me. I’m through with the old game of playing the genie in the bottle for predatory millionaires. Henceforth I’m on my own. I’m romantic – yes, sir – I’m romantic from heel to cowlick; and now I’m going to give rein to this stifled longing.”
“You will come to a halter round your neck. I have always paid your price on the nail, Cunningham.”
“You had to. Hang it, passions are the very devil, aren’t they? Sooner or later one jumps upon your back and rides you like the Old Man of the Sea.”
Cleigh heard the rumble of steam.
“Objects of art!” went on Cunningham. “It eats into your vitals to hear that some rival has picked up a Correggio or an ancient Kirman or a bit of Persian plaque. You talk of halters. Lord lumme, how obliquely you look at facts! Take that royal Persian there – the second-best animal rug on earth – is there no murder behind the woof and warp of it? What? Talk sense, Cleigh, talk sense! You cable me: Get such and such. I get it. What the devil do you care how it was got, so long as it eventually becomes yours? It’s a case of the devil biting his own tail – pot calling kettle black.”
“How much do you want?”
“No, Cleigh, it’s the romantic idea.”
“I will give you fifty thousand for the rug.”
“I’m sorry. No use now of telling you the plot; you wouldn’t believe me, as the song goes. Dinner at seven. Will you dine in the salon with me, or will you dine in the solemn grandeur of your own cabin, in company with Da Vinci, Teniers, and that Carlo Dolci the Italian Government has been hunting high and low for?”
“I will risk the salon.”
“To keep an eye on me as long as possible. That’s fair enough. You heard what I said to those boys. Well, every mother’s son of ’em will toe the mark. There will be no change at all in the routine. Simply we lay a new course that will carry us outside and round Formosa, down to the South Sea and across to the Catwick. I’ll give you one clear idea. A million and immunity would not stir me, Cleigh.”
“What’s the game – if it’s beyond ransom?”
Cunningham laughed boyishly.
“It’s big, and you’ll laugh, too, when I tell you.”
“On which side of the mouth?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Is it the rug?”
“Oh, that, of course! I warned you that I’d come for the rug. It took two years out of my young life to get that for you, and it has always haunted me. I just told you about passions, didn’t I? Once on your back, they ride you like the devil – down-hill.”
“A crook.”
“There you go again – pot calling kettle black! If you want to moralize, where’s the line between the thief and the receiver? Fie on you! Dare you hang that Da Vinci, that Dolci, that Holbein in your gallery home? No! Stolen goods. What a passion! You sail across the seas alone, alone because you can’t satisfy your passion and have knowing companions on board. When the yacht goes out of commission you store the loot, and tremble when you hear a fire alarm. All right. Dinner at seven. I’ll go and liberate your son and the lady.”
“Cunningham, I will kill you out of hand the very first chance.”
“Old dear, I’ll add a fact for your comfort. There will be guns on board, but half an hour gone all the ammunition was dumped into the Whangpoo. So you won’t have anything but your boson’s whistle. You’re a bigger man than I am physically, and I’ve a slue-foot, a withered leg; but I’ve all the barroom tricks you ever heard of. So don’t make any mistakes in that direction. You are free to come and go as you please; but the moment you start any rough house, into your cabin you go, and you’ll stay there until we raise the Catwick. You haven’t a leg to stand on.”
Cunningham lurched out of the salon and into the passage. He opened the door to Cabin Two and turned on the light. Dennison blinked stupidly. Cunningham liberated him and stood back.
“Dinner at seven.”
“What the devil are you doing on board?” asked Dennison, thickly.
“Well, here’s gratitude for you! But in order that there will be no misunderstanding, I’ve turned to piracy for a change. Great sport! I’ve chartered the yacht for a short cruise.” His banter turned into cold, precise tones. Cunningham went on: “No nonsense, captain! I put this crew on board away back in New York. Those beads, though having a merit of their own, were the lure to bring your father to these parts. Your presence and Miss Norman’s are accidents for which I am genuinely sorry. But frankly, I dare not turn you loose. That’s the milk in the cocoanut. I grant you the same privileges as I grant your father, which he has philosophically agreed to accept. Your word of honour to take it sensibly, and the freedom of the yacht is yours. Otherwise, I’ll lock you up in a place not half so comfortable as this.”
“Piracy!”
“Yes, sir. These are strangely troubled days. We’ve slumped morally. Humanity has been on the big kill, with the result that the tablets of Moses have been busted up something fierce. And here we are again, all kotowing to the Golden Calf! All I need is your word – the word of a Cleigh.”
“I give it.” Dennison gave his word so that he might be free to protect the girl in the adjoining cabin. “But conditionally.”
“Well?”
“That the young lady shall at all times be treated with the utmost respect. You will have to kill me otherwise.”
“These Cleighs! All right. That happens to be my own order to the crew. Any man who breaks it will pay heavily.”
“What’s the game?” asked Dennison, rubbing his wrists tenderly while he balanced unsteadily upon his aching legs.
“Later! I’ll let Miss Norman out. That’s so – her things are in the salon. I’ll get them, but I’ll unlock her door first.”
“What in heaven’s name has happened?” asked Jane as she and Dennison stood alone in the passage.
“The Lord knows!” gloomily. “But that scoundrel Cunningham has planted a crew of his own on board, and we are all prisoners.”
“Cunningham?”
“The chap with the limp.”
“With the handsome face? But this is piracy!”
“About the size of it.”
“Oh, I knew something was going to happen! But a pirate! Surely it must be a joke?”
So it was – probably the most colossal joke that ever flowered in the mind of a man. The devil must have shouted and the gods must have held their sides, for it took either a devil or a god to understand the joke.
